P2
by Doc0517
Summary: P2 is the continuation of the series that started with Saving the Saviors, followed by Pointillist. In this third book, we join our Team just after the shoot-out. Greer's Team is gone, and Harold's Team is hurting. After some much needed time to recover, events take them out of Manhattan, to chase Greer wherever he tries to hide.
1. Chapter 1

**Book 3: Pointillist 2**

 **Introduction**

Chapter 24: Help from home, and a threat abroad.

May 26, 2019

Author's preface:

Just a bit of orientation for those who might want it. This is the third book of a series that began with _Saving the Saviors_. Think of that one as bookends around _Pointillist_ and this new one, _Pointillist 2 (P2)._

It jumped back and forth in time between the years 2014 and late 2016. That first book was a way to save the characters from the ending in the TV series, because we loved them too much to let them go like that.

Book 1 imagined a different ending and it showed, instead, what it would take to bring them back from all the losses they'd suffered. Book 1 didn't let them sacrifice themselves in the end. The characters and the show's themes have far more life left in them; there's so much more story we can explore with them. Toward that end, it introduced a few new characters, and brought back some familiar ones from the show – but bent them a bit to the needs of the story.

And then if we backtrack to the beginning of Book 2, we recall that Harold's Team had just returned from Washington D.C. after a foiled attempt to capture Greer. But they returned with a prize for their hard work: they had found and rescued Grace. She'd been a prisoner, held by Greer and his Team in Washington for months. At the start of _Pointillist_ , Harold had brought her back to safety, in New York.

But as the Team began to debrief her, they realized that she had been systematically re-programmed by Greer – to turn her away from Harold.

Greer had made her believe that Harold was the enemy, the one psychologically torturing her each day during her captivity, the one taking her memories away from her.

In _Pointillist_ , Grace was lost to Harold all over again. So much loss in Harold's life. For a man trying to help save others, he had ended up sacrificing the safety of those closest to him.

Greer began a campaign to crush Harold's Team, one by one. He had recruited a person who knew Reese better than anyone else; his ex-partner from the CIA, Kara Stanton. With her knowledge of Reese, and all of her black ops skills, she was the perfect one to pursue him. Finding Reese would lead Greer to the rest of the Team, and ultimately, to Harold and his Machine.

Greer recruited the Zheng, too, members of a violent Chinese street gang who willingly switched their allegiance to him. And Greer had secretly imported a skilled assassin through his contacts in China, a threat that Harold's Machine didn't see coming. In fact, the Machine had certain blind-spots that put the Team at risk again and again, until Harold relented and gave the Machine new powers.

Meanwhile, the Machine had assigned Shaw a new POI, Marco Bruzzese, a researcher in the energy field. He was an American living abroad in Italy when he learned of the chance discovery of a clean, cheap energy source that would quickly replace oil, coal, and nuclear energy all over the world. By publishing the theory of how its chemistry worked, he had stunned scientists everywhere – and made himself a target for those whose wealth and power were threatened by this new discovery. Shaw saved Marco from two attempts on his life in P _ointillist_. And, of course, there were consequences for Shaw – and for Root.

Reese and his Team had succeeded in planting a spy, Leon Tao, into Greer's organization. But Leon was perhaps just a coin-operated opportunist at best. Which side would have his loyalty? Or none? How far could they really trust him?

And Reese was struggling with his own demons, too, in Book 2. Still reeling from the loss of Joss Carter, and suffering flashbacks from the time he'd spent in Afghanistan and in black ops for the CIA, Reese was not at his best. His life was beginning to unravel.

He and his mayhem twin, Shaw, were captured by the Zheng in Book 2, and this experience would change the relationships among all of the members of the Team. For Reese, though, even in the midst of all the trauma, he found an unexpected moment of relief, of peace. Was there hope for something more?

Finch had finally launched his counter-attack at Samaritan. Using secret information shared with him by his dying friend, Arthur Claypool, creator of Samaritan, Harold had attacked the machine with a sophisticated computer game. It had brought Samaritan to its knees, and crippled Greer's Team.

The street-fight that ensued at the end of Book 2 left both Teams wounded and hurting. Greer and his Team barely escaped; Harold's Team held its ground in the surprise attack but paid a price.

As in the first two books, familiar characters from the show have been brought back in their new roles. New characters introduced in Books 1 and 2 re-appear in Book 3 – as this new story erupts from the confines of Manhattan, to go globe-trotting.

The Machine's true power has been unleashed a little more by Harold – and now Greer won't be able to hide from it, anywhere in the world, for very long. Samaritan is gravely wounded, but not dead. And Greer, the master villain, always seems to have another card up his sleeve to play...

In continuing deep love and appreciation for the ground-breaking work of the original show, and all of those who made it so unique. Let's keep going.

July, 2018

* * *

 **Table of Contents**

* * *

Part 1:

 **Chapter 1: Introduction, Table of Contents and Works cited**

 **Chapter 2: "What do you want me to do?" (rated T); this is what he'd signed up for (rated T); 9-1-1 (rated T)**

 **Chapter 3: "we've done this dance before." (rated T)**

 **Chapter 4: an army of followers (rated T); never so many on one person (rated T)**

 **Chapter 5: missions; favorite place on earth**

 **Chapter 6: find Finch; "Get used to it"**

 **Chapter 7: find Reese; To her shore**

 **Chapter 8: But not Grace**

 **Chapter 9: didn't fix it (rated T for adult themes)**

 **Chapter 10: high places; _I Know I_ _Dream_**

 **Chapter 11: They needed this (rated T); poverty  
**

Part 2:  


 **Chapter 12: Four-eyes**

 **Chapter 13: "I have to go."**

 **Chapter 14: For Reese instead; Greer in the middle**

 **Chapter 15: Conflicted?; designated driver; no more**

 **Chapter 16: better sleep; for a price; _Location confirmed_**

 **Chapter 17: "Mercenaries, mostly" (rated T)**

 **Chapter 18: move on (rated T for adult themes); forty-four; Inside.**

 **Chapter 19: _and your enemies closer;_ Olawale**

 **Chapter 20: Like her (rated T for adult themes); another who could; fire-breathing (rated T for adult themes)**

 **Chapter 21: she still slept (rated T for adult themes)**

 **Chapter 22: hellcat (rated T); legend (rated T); _Asset intercepted_**

 **Chapter 23: b **ait (rated T); "take a look at this" (rated T)****

Part 3:

 **Chapter 24** **: in the middle of it all; "I have something to tell you."**

* * *

 **Works Cited**

* * *

Music and other works important in this story will be cited here, for your own journey. Enjoy.

Chapter 7: In To her shore: Reese is faced with a decision. It should be so easy. Wait for the line across the page to queue this beautiful song, from, of course:

Cook, Jesse."To Your Shore," _One World_ , eOne Music Canada, 2015.

Chapter 8: in But not Grace: Harold has to face his loss, and the choices he's made. Try listening to this singer - wonderful. Especially if you learn her own story.

Gardot, Melody. "Some Lessons," _Worrisome Heart,_ UCJ, 2008. _  
_

Chapter 9 : in didn't fix it: Root tries to make her stand with Sameen. Listen to this incredible voice, singing the song of Root's heart. If you can listen to this rendition, I think you'll be blown away, too, by the emotion in Gardot's voice. Nobody does it like her.

Gardot, Melody. "So We Meet Again My Heartache," _The Absence,_ Decca, 2012

Chapter 10: in _I Know I Dream:_ Harold delivers a special message to Grace. And his fondest wish for Christmas is held in this lovely song, from Jazz singer:

Kent, Stacey. "I Know I Dream," _I Know I Dream_ , Sony Music, 2017.

Chapter 11: in They needed this: Reese makes his decision. Join him with this beautiful rendition.

Gardot, Melody. "Love Me Like A River Does," _Worrisome Heart,_ UCJ _, 2008._

Chapter 11: in poverty: Harold must face the consequences of decisions made. This beautiful, haunting piece captures the feeling of that moment.

Cook, Jesse."Three Days," _One World,_ eOne Music Canada, 2015.

Chapter 15: in no more: Greer and Kara Stanton head East from Senegal to a meeting in Nigeria. Listen to the sounds of Senegal in this heartfelt song from Youssou N'Dour.

N'Dour, Youssou. "No More," _7 Seconds: The Best of Youssou N'Dour,_ Columbia, Legacy, 2004.

Chapter 20: in Like her: Root is lost and struggling, and this piece from Sarah McLachlan reaches that place:

McLachlan, Sarah."Do What You Have To Do," _Mirrorball,_ Arista, 1999.

And, in fire-breathing: Root meets an exotic woman, and finds her own moment of peace. Listen to this beautiful song, also from Sarah McLachlan:

McLachlan, Sarah."Angel," _Mirrorball_ , Arista, 1999.

Chapter 21: in she still slept: Root doesn't realize that she's in trouble.

Smith, Sam. "Drowning Shadows," _In the Lonely Hour (Drowning Shadows Edition) (Disc 2)_ , Sony/ATV Music, 2014.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: "What do you want me to do?"(rated T); this is what he'd signed up for (rated T); 9-1-1(rated T)  
**

* * *

 **Memorial Hospital SICU, Manhattan, December 2014 - rated T  
**

"Detective, we need to move Miss Shaw before the police arrive."

Harold had pulled Fusco aside, now that he had had time to assess the situation. He thought the best plan would be for Miss Groves and Miss Shaw to head to the safe-house together – to wait for him there.

Detective Fusco would stay here in the hospital with Mr. Reese, so that when the NYPD arrived it would only be their fellow officers – Reese and Fusco – left to interview.

Miss Shaw's presence, a civilian wearing a tactical vest shot full of holes, would be impossible to explain. She needed to disappear before the police swarmed the place. Harold sent Fusco to help with Shaw.

The story that Detectives Fusco and Reese would tell, and that Harold would confirm when the NYPD took his statement, was that two armed women had burst through the door, and started shooting at all the police officers in the room.

In the melee, the officer standing next to Detective Fusco had been shot and killed, but thanks to their vests, Detectives Reese and Fusco had survived. The two armed women had been wounded, too, during the shooting, but were able to escape to the elevators. No one knew where they were now.

Harold already knew that the police would find all the security cameras in the hospital had been disabled by the two women, to hide their attack. With security systems down, none of it had been recorded. The police would have to rely on statements from eye-witnesses – a lucky break for Harold and his Team. Their faces would not appear on video clips, played over and over on every news outlet, for the world to see.

Harold was confident that the NYPD would mount a full-scale pursuit of those reckless enough to ambush police inside a major New York hospital. And once the NYPD saw the connection, with a little help from Harold, between this shoot-out and the one in the Park a few nights ago, they would surround Marco Bruzzese with a "blue wall" of officers to protect him. Marco was the real target. Harold would be grateful for the blue wall. He needed all the help he could get to keep Marco safe.

With the NYPD taking over, it would free Harold and his Team to focus on finding Greer and stopping him. This surprise attack had nearly worked. They couldn't afford to let Greer get away again.

Harold looked around him in the darkness. Showers of sparks were still falling from equipment in the ceiling. In the blue-white light he could see Miss Shaw on the floor with Miss Groves and Detective Fusco at her side.

She was sitting up, but looked dazed to them. There was blood splattered on her face. Her shirt was open in the front and the vest underneath it was shredded in the center. Fusco was shaking his head. He'd never seen a vest take that many rounds before. He could see three holes in the center, and two others scattered wide to the sides.

"Shaw?" Fusco knelt down next to her, and she turned her head in his direction, but he could tell she wasn't really seeing him. Her eyes were blank.

"Come on. We've got to get you out of here. Can you stand up?" Fusco reached out to her, and Root got behind her to help her stand. Shaw grimaced as they pulled her up. Couldn't be helped. They had to get her out of here.

"What's going on? Where are you taking her!" A young, dark-haired woman rushed over from the door of the chapel where people had gathered after the shoot-out. Shaw had been the one to shield her on the floor when Martine had tried to shoot her. Shaw had saved her life.

Harold stepped forward, blocking the young woman's view, while Fusco and Root walked Shaw toward the door. In his softest voice, nearly a whisper, he leaned in close to her and said, "Miss Bruzzese, we work with Detective Shaw. She needs treatment right away for her wounds. Please. Let us help her."

Harold placed his hand gently on the young woman's arm, and turned her slowly toward the inner door to the Surgical ICU. Beyond that door was the unit where her brother, Marco, was a patient.

"Why don't you and I go in and check on your brother. I need to share something important with you about Detective Shaw. She needs your help." At first she let him lead her, but then she stopped and pulled her arm away from Harold's hand. Her eyes were dark and serious.

"Who are you – exactly?"she asked. Harold nodded, understanding her reluctance after everything that had just happened.

"Miss Bruzzese, as I said, we are colleagues of Detective Shaw. She's in a dangerous position right now, and I must ask you if you're willing to help her."

"I don't understand."

Harold looked around him, checking for those who might overhear their conversation. He lowered his voice further so that the young woman had to lean closer to hear him.

"Detective Shaw has been working undercover – assigned to protect your brother, Marco. Very few on the force know this, and we _must_ keep it that way. A few days ago she was able to intercept a woman who was sent to find him. If Detective Shaw hadn't been there, this woman, a hired assassin, would surely have killed your brother." Harold could see the look in her eyes – surprised, but not afraid.

"Who are these people? What do they want with Marco? He's a scientist – " she said.

"Yes, we know. Perhaps his work is the reason he's a target. We're not certain yet. Miss Bruzzese, we know some, but not all, of the people looking for your brother. We need time to find them all – and stop them. Otherwise, he'll never be safe." Harold stopped for a moment, gauging her response, and then went on, his voice still a whisper.

" And that is why I must ask you to protect Detective Shaw's identity. You must not reveal that you saw her here tonight. It would put her in grave danger if the wrong people found out."

Harold watched her reaction. She stared down at the floor as she tried to make sense of his story. In a few moments, he could see her square her shoulders, and then she looked up to him, nodding yes.

"What do you want me to do?"

 **Airspace, Atlantic ocean off the coast of Manhattan, December, 2014 - rated T  
**

"Get another set of vitals on her."

Like a choreographed routine, the team had scooped the injured women at the bottom of the stairwell, up five flights to the rooftop, and onto the waiting helicopter. Their first passenger was already loaded, a white-haired man with a chest wound.

The two females were conscious, but not talking, other than to answer a few medical questions: _any allergies? meds? medical problems?_

In minutes, they were airborne, off the roof and heading fast for the open water. The sound of the rotor nearly drowned the conversation inside, and the pitch and rocking of the copter made it harder for the medic to move among the wounded. He'd opened the trauma pack and reached in for scissors, then knelt down between the two women.

The dark-haired one had bloodstains soaking her shirt. He lifted the edge up and sliced through the fabric with the open shears, like Christmas wrapping paper. Two wounds, one on each side of her chest. And another one on the inside of the right upper arm. He opened two quick-clot pads and laid them on top of the bloody chest wounds. That would stop the bleeding until they could get her to the ship. Tape wouldn't hold them on the skin. It was too wet from all the blood. He'd have to wrap them to keep them on. He grabbed a roller bandage from the trauma pack and ripped off the plastic, then unrolled it over the top of the first pad, angling it up to the second, and around her torso, stretching it a little to put some pressure on the packs against her wounds. Then he added a second layer over the first. He was watching her eyes. Most people would be screaming bloody murder by now, but she was just watching him, grimacing when he reached behind her with the roller bandage, but that's it.

He lifted the sleeve above the wound on the right arm and clipped it open, then followed the opening with his shears all around the sleeve until it separated from the rest. He pulled the sleeve off her arm and took a look. Only one wound. The bullet was still inside somewhere, and they'd have to find it with an x-ray when they got to the ship. For now, he just wrapped the quick-clot pad over the wound with another roller bandage.

Bailey, the new medic he was training, was just getting back after securing the stretcher with the white-haired man. He stepped over the dark-haired woman, and then over the blonde, rocking with the motion of the helicopter, and knelt down next to her. The towel on the side of her neck was soaked through with dark blood, and he could see her eyes starting to roll back. He ripped off his gloves and threw them on the floor behind him. Then he pulled another pair from the trauma pack and a larger-sized quick-clot pad. The way the towel had filled up like that, he was sure the wound was still bleeding underneath. He just hoped it wasn't spurting when he lifted the towel. He held the pad close by, while he peeled back the towel from her neck. Dark blood gushed from the wound and he slapped the pad down on top to stop it.

Bailey smiled to himself. This is what he'd signed up for. The action. Navy Seal first, then for the last 36 weeks, Seal Medic school, where he'd trained alongside Rangers, Air Force, special ops guys. The classes kicked their butts at first. So much info, so fast. But then most of them found their stride, started getting it. Not everyone, though. Just because you'd passed the test to get in, it didn't mean you were cut out for this. He looked up at Spider, the older medic training him. He'd been to places and done things that Bailey couldn't imagine doing – but soon he'd have his own stories to tell, too, like Spider's. Medics trained like the two of them were in short supply. His time with Spider would be over quick – and then he'd be on his own with his own team of Seals.

By the time the helicopter was hovering over the ship below, slowly lowering to the painted target, IV bags were hanging overhead, swinging with the motion of the copter, and the wounded were ready for transport down to the trauma bay inside the ship. British ship. British flag. Diverted from some other mission to meet them with the wounded. Imagine that – they were landing on a British ship with three wounded civilians, after a scoop-and-run mission in the skies of Manhattan.

Bailey felt the landing gear touch down, and in a moment the door would open and the noise and the smell and the wind from the blades would hit them. This is what he'd signed up for.

 **Memorial Hospital ER, Manhattan, December, 2014- rated T  
**

"Mr. Reese, we know where Greer and his Team landed. They're on a ship, a British ship, off the coast. We don't have the resources to intercept them right now. You need to stand down, John."

Reese was shaking his head. This was not the right plan. They needed to go after Greer _now_ , while he was still on the run. Greer and two of his Team had been flown off the roof in a medivac helicopter. If they waited too long, Greer and his people would recover; and the chances for another surprise attack increased with each passing day.

"Finch, you pay me to advise you. I advise you not to waste time. We need to go after them before they regroup." He looked up at Finch, who was standing at his side next to the gurney.

"This team has been through enough, and I won't risk it. We're not ready, John. Samaritan is still crippled. Greer and his Team were wounded. They're not in any shape to orchestrate an attack."

Finch could see Reese chafe at the thought of waiting, but Reese had his limitations. He was a Detective in the NYPD, not a Ranger, or an agent in the CIA. There were limits to the kind of chase he could give, with Greer on a British ship in international waters. They would all have to wait for the right time.

On the next gurney, they watched an ER doctor pressing on the bones around Fusco's left eye. Reese could see dark bruising there, the imprint of the sole from Martine's boot. She'd managed to clip him with it to stop him from firing again. Fusco was the only one who'd had a clear shot that didn't put civilians or other Team members at risk, and he'd taken it, but paid the price.

With his good eye, Fusco could see Finch and Reese looking over at him. What were they talking about over there? He was trying to piece together what he remembered from the last few hours. Reese had sent him up to the SICU to keep watch over their POI, Marco, and his family – while Reese and Shaw went down to the main floor of the hospital to find Greer. Harold and Root had joined him there in the SICU, but later, he remembered Harold leaving on some mission to try to get the security system working again.

Fusco remembered standing with another officer from the NYPD, just inside the door to the SICU. They were talking, when the door suddenly opened. The force of it had made him look up, and the other officer had seen the look in his eyes and started to turn around. Fusco remembered it like a slow-motion video replay: the two women entering, the flash from their guns, the officer next to him spinning down to the floor, a force like a hammer-blow against his chest, and him landing on the hard floor, next to the officer. He couldn't think for a minute. He couldn't catch his breath.

Then there were more gunshots, bullets whizzing past him, and then something in the ceiling exploded into sparks so bright that none of them could see anything else. The lights went off all around them, and all the shooting stopped. They'd all been blinded by the showers of sparks from the ceiling. So bright, like looking into the sun. Whatever it was, it had stopped the shooting and saved them from the attack.

He could hear the two women, Kara and Martine, yelling to each other with the sparks exploding all around them. And there was a commotion behind him where Shaw had been standing with Root just a few moments before the gunfire started.

Someone was running in the darkness, in his direction, but he couldn't see who it was. He could hear Shaw's voice, and then people from inside the Unit were running past them to the doors, desperate to get out before the shooting could start again. Screaming. He remembered all the screaming from the panicked people rushing by, seeing him and the dead officer on the floor, in a pool of the officer's blood.

And he remembered looking out the open door, to the hallway. The screaming had finally stopped, and the crowds rushing the door were gone. He could see a man out there now, in the light from the hallway, standing there, looking in. Harold. It was Harold, standing alone at the doorway, looking for them.

Fusco started to raise his head, to warn Harold. Get down! Get down! But he couldn't speak.

Harold had seen him lying in the pool of blood on the floor, and then his eyes found someone else on the floor beyond him. Shaw. And then Harold's eyes looked to the side. Fusco remembered hearing footsteps, uneven footsteps, running. Reese.

He wondered what Harold was thinking, when he saw Kara Stanton taking aim at him. Fusco had turned his head when he saw Harold stop, mid-step, in the hallway. He saw her little smile, a small moment of triumph that she let herself have, before she squeezed the trigger. She hadn't noticed the blur from the side. Reese had gotten there just as she started to fire. A human shield in front of Harold. Fusco could see the muzzle flash in the darkness. He turned over, and raised his gun, struggling for breath, his hand as steady as he could make it.

The shot at Kara Stanton was his first, but the most difficult, just a narrow line of sight past Martine, who was blocking his shot. Kara had gone to her knee, bent forward, her gun skidding away on the hard floor.

Martine had spun his way, her gun in front, aimed at his head. Just one chance. He fired, and she did, too, a split-second later.

Blood ran down her neck, and she reached up with her right hand to stop the flow. She saw Fusco getting ready for another shot. She'd missed him with hers. In desperation, she kicked out with her boot and caught him across the eyes. Her kick threw him back. His eyes. He couldn't see to shoot again.

The next thing he knew, he was waking up on the floor, and he could breathe again. His head hurt, and his chest was on fire. He tried to open his eyes, but the left one was stuck closed. He raised his head and looked around in the darkness with the right eye. Root was kneeling next to Shaw, who was sitting on the floor nearby. He swung his head around, and there was Harold, on his knees next to Reese by the doorway. Reese wasn't moving.

Fusco rolled up to his knees, and then pushed himself up. The officer who had been the first one hit was there at his feet. He could tell by the color of his skin that he was gone, but he reached down and felt for a pulse anyway. Nothing. And the skin was already cool under his fingertips. Fusco shook his head. Never had a chance, poor bastard. They'd come in firing, and there was no cover where the two of them were standing. His vest had saved his life.

He walked over to Harold and Reese. Reese was starting to move on the floor. Harold was calling his name, his face strained, and his hands were shaking when he reached out to keep Reese from trying to sit up. Fusco didn't see blood anywhere, but as he got closer he could see metal reflecting the light from all the sparks falling. With his good eye, he could see the ends of metal casings buried in the layers of Reese's vest.

Reese on the floor like that, and Shaw, too – it reminded him of the two of them in the basement of the hair salon in Queens, when he'd found them after the Zheng had beaten the hell out of them. What was it, with the two of them? Never far from trouble.

He'd leaned down, over Harold's shoulder, as Reese was looking up at the two of them. Fusco couldn't help himself:

"Well, at least I don't have to call 9-1-1 this time. You're already _in_ the hospital."


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: "we've done this dance before." (rated T)  
**

 **Manhattan, December, 2014**

She had met him at the door of her apartment, with Bear there next to her. Bear was wagging his body and rubbing up against Reese's legs with his shoulder, knocking Reese back onto his bad leg. Gelila saw him catch himself and grimace in pain.

She gave Bear the command to sit down, " _zit,"_ while she reached out and hooked his right arm to help Reese come inside. Bear was down on his belly watching the two of them, his eyes alert, and his head angled to one side. He was whimpering softly as they went by.

She helped Reese to her couch, the nearest spot to sit down, and as he lowered himself to the seat, she latched onto the frame of a heavy ottoman with the toes of one foot, and dragged it over in front of him.

He lifted the right leg onto the top, but when he tried to straighten the knee, it was too much, almost bending backwards. Gelila grabbed one of the pillows from her couch, and slid it under the knee, to lift it up and bend it a bit.

She could see that it was better for him like that, and once he looked more comfortable, she sat down next to him on the couch, facing him. Gelila could see the look in his eyes. Exhausted. He didn't have much to say tonight.

She thought he looked like he was in pain – and from more than just the bad knee. Something else must have happened since he'd left her the other night. She remembered the bruising on his arm above the wrist, and all the long purple ones across his ribs. She wanted to see for herself, in this better light, what he was hiding under his shirt.

But she knew she would have to take it slowly. Reese was cooler, a little distant tonight. She would have to work for his trust all over again, she sensed.

What kind of life did this man lead, that put him in such physical danger each day? And why would he stay at it? What would drive him to suffer like this? She placed her hand on his shoulder, gently.

"Are you hungry?" she asked. His eyes shifted to hers, and he shook his head no.

"But, I'll bet you wouldn't turn down a hot cup of coffee?" He smiled a small smile to her, as much for the sound of her British accent as for her knowing he needed his coffee, even at this late hour. He leaned back against the high back of the couch. She looked for Bear, and realized he was still on the floor near the front door.

" _Heir_ ," she called to him over the high back. He stood up and they could hear him walk around the end of the couch, eyes shifting between the two of them. He walked directly to Reese, and laid his muzzle on his thigh, breathing out a long noisy sigh.

" _Braaf,"_ he said, telling him he was "good." Reese slid his eyes to the side, meeting hers. She was watching him, aware now that he knew the Dutch commands, too. Reese reached over to Bear's head, and ran his hand over the top, between Bear's ears, and then he scrubbed his fingers on the back of his head and neck, around the base of his ears. Bear climbed up next to Reese on the couch and laid his head on his thigh.

Gelila watched the two of them settle, and put her hand on Reese's arm. "You two stay here. I'll be back in a few minutes."

She padded softly in bare feet to her kitchen, and set up the coffee machine to brew him a cup. It made a sound like gear-noises, and then she could hear the steaming water drop down to mix with the coffee inside. A moment later, the dark fragrant brew was dripping into his mug, filling her kitchen with its aroma. She loved the smell of it, but it was far too late for her to drink any now. It would keep her awake all night.

She'd worked all day today, so she was looking forward to a good night's rest tonight. That is, until she'd gotten the call from Reese today at the office. He'd been tied up at work for days, he said, and this was his first chance to call and let her know he'd "come up for air." She'd laughed when he said it. Such odd expressions Americans had.

She'd invited him over here, to her flat. He could pick up Bear at her place, now that Bear was ready to go home. Her reunion with Reese would be a little more private _here_ than in the middle of the office, like last time.

Gelila heated some water in the microwave for a cup of herbal tea and by the time it was done boiling, she had Reese's mug of coffee ready, and she plopped a teabag into her own mug. The smell of vanilla and hazelnut wafted up from the bubbling water. She grabbed a treat for Bear, too, from the box on the counter.

Reese liked his coffee black, and she didn't need anything in her tea, so she walked back out to the couch, and sat the mugs down on the coffee table nearby. Reese was resting against the back of the couch, with Bear at his side. She smiled at the two of them. Bear saw his treat in her hand and she flipped it to him. He caught it in mid-air and started crunching it to pieces between his back teeth. Then she turned her attention to Reese.

"Oh, I don't think I properly said hello when you came in," she said softly, smiling, and Reese smiled back with his eyes closed. She leaned over and gave him a kiss, and then leaned against him for another, but felt him pull back in pain.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" she said, jumping back. "Did I hurt you?" He was sitting forward with his hand over his chest.

"Let me see," she said softly, reaching for his shirt. He tried to stop her, his hands wrapping around hers, and shaking his head, no.

This was all too familiar. They were starting over again, just like when she had brought him to her Call Room the other night. He had held her hands back from his shirt just like this then, too.

"Please. I can help."

She had that look in her eyes. Like she wasn't going to take no for an answer. He thought about telling her it was time for him to leave, that he was tired and needed to get some sleep. All true – but he could see that she was determined to see for herself.

"I believe we've done this dance before. Remember?" She leaned against the back of the couch, and brought her lips next to his ear. Softly, she whispered, "let me."

If he didn't let her hands go, she had other things in mind to convince him, but it wasn't long before he released her hands. Smart man. He was learning. She wouldn't give in once she knew what she wanted.

One after another, she unbuttoned his buttons. It reminded her of the two of them in her Call Room that night. She felt her heart beat faster, and her skin started to heat at her throat and chest. Put that thought on hold, she said to herself. Maybe later. Let's see what trouble had come his way since he was there in her arms the other night.

She unbuttoned the front of his shirt, and slid it open, away from his chest. The white tee underneath still hid the damage, and now his eyes were open, looking at her.

This would test her, he thought to himself. He hadn't intended for her to see him like this.

"Oh, my God, John," she said when she lifted the tee. He saw the look in her eyes, like she had seen this before. It was all jumbled up in her face. She backed away for a second, and her eyes moved up and to the left, like she was searching for something in her memory. And then, she must have found it. She knew what this was.

"Who did this to you? What happened? Every time you leave – " Her words tumbled out, and then she stopped herself. She didn't want to go there.

Reese could see her staring into space for a few moments, her breathing deep and faster than normal. There were lines around her eyes, and a deep furrow between them. She brought her hands together in front of her chest and closed her eyes.

It was too much, he thought. All of this was too much for her to take. Not a surprise. What normal person could? He closed his eyes, and lowered his head. He just needed a minute, and then he could get up and say goodbye. He would take Bear and leave her in peace. He should know by now. These things never worked out. His life was too hard on the ones who cared, like her.

He remembered the look in her eyes, at the Vet office downtown. She had those beautiful eyes, those blue blue eyes, that had captured him. He thought she might be different, stronger somehow. Maybe she could understand.

But there, in her room that night, when she was so close to him, he wasn't sure. It was so hard to let someone in. He didn't know if he could. But she'd leaned in against him. He remembered her pushing him back against the door, and his hands went up around hers, just like tonight. Her lips were on his neck and he remembered the feel of them – dragging across his skin. And her breath on his ear. "Trust me," she'd said.

No, no, he had to stop her. He backed away, but she came closer. "Trust me. Let me," she was saying, and he was fighting with himself. No. Yes. And then, finally he just did. He let her go.

She looked up at him with those blue blue eyes. He couldn't look away. She was taking his shirt off, and then his vest. And then her hands were on him, and he could feel himself shuddering under them. But then he remembered the holster and his gun at his belt in back; her hands were nearly there. He tried to pull away, but she held him there against her. Even when she found it, she didn't let him back away. "Trust me," she'd said. He was torn. His head said one thing, but in his heart, something else.

She had taken him to her bed, but when she found all the cuts and blood from the crash with the motorcycle, she'd taken him to her shower. And the two of them were in there together.

He remembered the smell of her soap, and the water falling on the two of them, and the feel of her skin against his.

He remembered the two of them in her bed, later, her body stretched out on his left side. She was so warm. He could feel her heartbeat on his chest in the darkness.

Emptied. He felt emptied of everything. Like he was drifting on a slow, quiet river in the deep woods.

This must be what peace felt like.

He felt safe, with her.

But now, that was gone. Ruined. It hurt in his chest.

He shook his head. Time to go.

But just as he was gathering himself to get up, he felt her head lean down on his shoulder, and she was reaching across him with her arm, pulling him closer. Her lips were on his neck, and she dragged them across the skin to his ear.

"Stay," she said, breathy, quiet, as she reached for him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: an army of followers (rated T); never so many on one person (rated T)**

* * *

 **Trauma Bay, Atlantic Ocean, December, 2014**

"You can see where it entered here, fractured this rib, fragmented, went through and exited there. This fragment buried itself in the right upper arm, right here." There were nods and sounds of agreement among the knot of surgeons and staff staring at Kara Stanton's x-rays.

"Pretty damn amazing that it didn't do more damage. Smashed the hell out of the rib, but other than that, not much to do here. She's a lucky woman." The group stepped down to the next set of x-rays, labeled _Martine Rousseau_ , and one of the junior surgeons gave a quick review of the history for the rest.

"Thirty-six year old Caucasian female with no significant past medical history, struck obliquely in the antero-lateral right neck with a bullet fired from a handgun at close range. Neuro was intact on admission. Entry was lateral to the trachea. She was taken for urgent exploratory surgery to control hemorrhage and found to have injuries to the external jugular vein and the sternocleidomastoid muscle, which were repaired. Carotid artery was intact. She's received two units of packed cells, and her vitals have been stable following surgery." The discussion turned to antibiotics, drains, and lab work results before the group moved on to the final patient, John Greer.

"This is a seventy-five year old Caucasian male with hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and a forty-five pack-year smoking history who sustained blunt-force trauma to the mid right anterior chest wall, resulting in fractures of these two ribs – and producing the pneumothorax you see right here. A chest tube was placed prior to transport here, and this is today's x-ray. Cardiac evaluation has been unremarkable thus far. The patient is alert and talking – asking for a cup of tea." There were chuckles all around among the surgical team.

They went on to the ward, where their three patients were convalescing. The low ceiling and fluorescent lighting above a dark green floor made the whole room seem small and claustrophobic, but staff seemed unaware, bustling among the three beds.

At the first bed, a dark-haired woman sat up watching the Team approach. A tall, slender, gray-haired man in scrubs stepped forward and offered her his hand.

"Miss Stanton, welcome to the medical ship, _RFA Argus_. I'm Doctor Steele and these are the members of the surgical team responsible for your care while you're here." Kara raised her hand toward Steele's, but flinched as the motion pulled at the wounds on her right arm and chest wall. Steele noticed, and reached forward to her hand, just holding it there in his own, without shaking it, to make her pain any worse.

"You're a very lucky woman, Miss Stanton. The bullet that struck you bounced off a rib and ricocheted forward, away from any of your vital organs. It came to rest inside your arm." He saw her eye move to a small jar on the tray table nearby, and recognized what was inside the jar. The bullet fragment from her arm was inside. He reached over with one hand and lifted it up, shaking it slightly to make it rattle inside the jar, and then he turned around to show it to the Team behind him.

"A souvenir from your stay aboard ship," he said with a small smile, when he turned back to Kara. She said nothing, but just watched his eyes.

"How do you feel today?"

"Hungry," she said with no hint of a smile. She pulled her arm back, slowly, to her side but the pain was worse coming than going, and she splinted on the right side.

"We can give you something for pain, Miss Stanton. Don't be afraid to ask."

"I just need some food, and coffee, lots of coffee" she said, with a barely-suppressed edge to her voice.

"Yes. You're American, right, Miss Stanton? Always refreshing to have an American on board." He reached for his stethoscope and listened through her hospital gown to her heart and then he leaned her forward in the bed to listen to her lungs. He thumped her on the back with his fingers, and they could hear the satisfying hollow sound with each thump.

"Excellent. Let's feed this patient," he said, smiling, and moved on, stopping to squirt clear gel on his hands, rubbing the gel over the surfaces. He stopped at the next bed, which was empty, and picked up some small paper squares in his left hand. With his right hand, he tore open the squares carefully, and then lifted the exposed white alcohol wipes inside.

While the group followed, he absently rubbed the wipes all over the surface of his stethoscope, and threw them into the trash. Then he squirted hand gel on his hands again. The others in the group watched him silently, and then moved around the bed of the next patient, a tall, muscular blonde woman.

One of the younger surgeons read off her blood pressure, pulse, her maximum temperature and the total amount of drainage from the neck wound this shift.

"Miss Rousseau, welcome to the hospital ship, _RFA Argus_. This is your team caring for you during your stay. I'm Doctor Steele," he said, and he saw her nod her head at the Team and then to him.

"Do you know what happened to you yesterday?" he asked, and she nodded her head, yes.

"You were struck in the neck by a bullet that appears to have been fired at close range from below you. It struck here, in the front next to the windpipe, and hit one of the muscles in the neck and then a blood vessel behind it. It's what we call a through-and-through wound. The bullet left the body. Do you understand?" He waited for her response, and she nodded her head up and down.

"I understand," she said, with a British accent just like theirs, but her voice was hoarse, just a whisper, and she grimaced a bit when she spoke, as though her throat were sore.

"The hoarseness will go away soon," Steele said. "It's from the breathing tube they put down your throat during the surgery. Can you tell us how you're doing today?" She nodded again and leaned forward toward them in the bed.

"Better than yesterday," she said in a hoarse whisper, and a chuckle went up around the group. Steele smiled.

"Yes, you were very fortunate as well, Miss Rousseau. A little further to your left, and this story could have had a very different outcome." Steele stepped forward toward the side of her bed, and listened to her heart and lungs. Then he listened to her abdomen for a few moments, and stepped over to look at the bulky dressing on the right side of her neck, with the little soft plastic bulb pinned to her gown. A small amount of dark bloody fluid sat in the bottom of the clear bulb.

"If you continue to do this well, and I have every expectation that you will, then we can get this drain out tomorrow morning, and start feeding you. Today, let's try some ice chips and see how you do with those. And, if you need medication for pain, Miss Rousseau, don't hesitate to ask your nurse, okay?"

He placed his hand on her shoulder, and stepped forward where she could see him without turning her head to the right. She looked very comfortable. Steele thought to himself that these two women were remarkably calm for the situation. Remarkably calm.

There had to be more to this story than what his Team had been told a few days ago. They'd got word of their new orders: proceed at maximum speed to intercept a U.S. helicopter with three casualties on board and provide all assistance needed. Concise and unhelpful. The orders gave no details to help them prepare for the wounded. Perhaps the last patient, John Greer, could enlighten him.

Steele walked from Martine's bedside, and followed the same hand- and stethoscope-cleaning routine as he walked further down the bay to the end bed. There, a slender man with a thick head of white hair sat upright in his bed, and as Steele approached, he realized he recognized the patient.

Anyone who'd ever met John Greer would never forget those eyes. Icy blue. Even with the wide smile crossing his face, his eyes never changed.

"So this is where they keep you, now that you're retired," Greer said, as he reached out to shake the surgeon's hand.

"John, I can't believe it's you. I had no idea," Steele said, shaking his head, shocked that a man he had known decades ago could be here, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, aboard his ship like this.

"What happened to you? How – " but Greer cut him off before he could ask more probing questions.

"We ran into a spot of trouble. Had to leave in a hurry." Even after all of these years, Steele could see in Greer's eyes that this was a topic he shouldn't pursue, at least not in public. Later, he could circle back for a more private discussion.

"Let this be a warning to all of you," Greer said dramatically, addressing the Team with a smile, "don't try to haggle over the bill with a New York cabbie. They're brutal," he said and the whole group broke up, laughing, as Greer lifted his hand like he was aiming and pulling the trigger of a gun; once, twice, three times.

He smiled at them, but Steele could see that his eyes didn't smile with the rest of his face.

Cold. His eyes were so cold. Steele looked around at the others to see if they'd noticed the same thing, but the rest of them were distracted by the joke, and not paying attention.

Steele examined Greer, and then looked at the site where the chest tube protruded from the chest. Greer grimaced with the examination of the stab wound there, where the thick, stiff plastic tube had been pushed between two ribs. Every time he took a breath the pain from the tube jammed there between the ribs, hurt him. Steele looked at his face and nodded.

"Hurts like hell, I know. We'll get it out of there soon, John. We want to be sure that the leak in the lung has sealed completely. We don't want to have to put this back in, do we?"

"I can wait. I'm a good patient. I'm in your capable hands," Greer crooned, in his low deep voice. Steele could see the Team mesmerized by him. His voice. His eyes. The cadence of his speech. Greer had always had the capacity to mesmerize a crowd like this. He should have been a man of the cloth, Steele thought to himself. He would have had an army of followers.

 **Manhattan, December, 2014**

The apartment was dark inside. And on the coffee table in the living room the two mugs that had held Reese's coffee and Gelila's tea, sat together, both untouched and cold now.

Bear was asleep on the couch where they'd been sitting when Reese first got there. Things had taken a detour from his original plan, to stop by for a few minutes to pick up Bear. He was going to go back with Bear to the safe-house tonight. It was too late to drop him off at the library office with Finch.

That had been his plan, but Reese wouldn't have minded a little extra time with Gelila, if it wasn't too late for her.

His Team had been putting in long hours at the safe-house, on computers and the phones, working the leads to try to get ahead of Greer. Everyone was frustrated, irritated, getting on each other's nerves. It was time to take a break. He'd told the rest of them that he was going out to get Bear. He needed some air, and he knew Shaw wanted to go back to the hospital to see how Marco was doing. At this hour, there was little chance of running into Marco's family there.

And he could see the look in Root's eyes when Shaw got up to get showered. This strain between the two of them needed to get handled, one way or the other. They needed to fight it out, or fix it somehow. And he didn't want to be there for it.

So, he'd come here, instead. Back to Gelila. He wasn't sure what kind of reception he'd get. He'd dropped out of sight again these last few days after the ambush with Greer's Team at the hospital.

He and Fusco were on Medical leave from work downtown, recovering from their injuries. So, no one would be looking for him tonight.

He was tired, and everything hurt, so he probably wasn't going to be much company. But he was looking forward to seeing her again. There was something about her that made him feel settled inside, calmer somehow.

He thought of how she'd taken care of Bear that night at the Vet office downtown. He'd brought Bear in with broken ribs from the fight in Queens. He didn't know she'd be there that night. And he wasn't sure how she'd react after she saw him there in the waiting room.

He'd missed his appointment with her, to pick up Bear the first time. Gelila had had every reason to be upset. Harold had gone in his place. That night when he'd promised to come for Bear, he and Shaw had been doing the same thing they were doing tonight – recovering from an ambush. Their luck had better change soon, or the Team would cease to exist.

Reese was lying back against her, propped up on pillows against the headboard. The soft light in her bedroom made the colors glow: oranges, browns and black made the room feel comfortable. She was reaching around to his chest, rubbing a white cream onto the skin, careful not to press too hard on the large bruises.

When she'd seen the marks tonight on his chest, after he'd tried to keep her from lifting his shirt, he thought he'd lost her. The look on her face – he was sure she was going to tell him to get out and never come back.

No matter how bad things had ever gotten for him through the years, it was always worse for anyone else in his life.

The people who cared couldn't take it after a while.

The not knowing – when he'd be gone, when he'd be back, where he was, and what had happened to him when he came back messed up. It was too hard for them to see it, and what it did to him. Too hard for anyone who really cared.

Most of them who did what he did for a living had learned the hard way – that this life was a relationship-killer. Solitary was better in the long run, at least for everyone else.

But here she was, dabbing the white cream on his skin, while he leaned back against her. He could hear her breathing near his ear. And she would whisper to him every once in a while, "does that hurt?"

No, he would say, and she would touch her cheek against his, and kiss him softly on his ear with her lips. He could feel how warm she was, her skin against the skin of his back.

He thought of her in the Call Room that night when she was lying there against him. Her skin was so warm that night, too. He felt like he would float free if she wasn't there, holding him down. The weight of her body on his made him feel safe. Like he could sleep. In her arms that night, he had slept, at last.

When she was through treating the bruises on his chest, she had him sit up for a little while, while she smoothed the cream onto the marks on his ribs in back. The color of the long wide bruises was slowly changing over to green, from the dark purple color they'd been before.

Reese could sense that she was imagining what might have made them. A wood baton.

The Zheng had used them to try to beat information out of Shaw and him.

They wanted to know where Finch was. So they'd used the wood batons on the two of them, and the long purple bruises were from the blows with the wood batons. The Zheng didn't get what they'd wanted from them, but they'd left the two of them alive in the basement that night, like a warning to the rest of the Team.

It was a few days later when he'd finally put it all together, that this was the work of someone from his past, someone who knew him better than anyone else alive – Kara Stanton.

As the one who'd trained him in black ops when he'd first arrived in the CIA, and as his partner on more missions than he cared to remember, she knew everything about him. And she spoke Mandarin, like the Zheng. She'd been the one who'd sent them.

Kara knew every side of him; she'd seen him do his best – and his worst. Every act of compassion. Every cruelty. She knew every secret he had.

She'd stripped him bare of everything about himself. He hadn't seen it happening at first. And then, when he did, it was too late.

She'd cracked him like an egg and sucked out every morsel, like a marauding bird attacking an unprotected nest.

He should have been more careful. He thought she'd have his back. She was his partner. But that meant nothing to her in the end. She just followed orders.

"Hey, you're a long way away. Come back to earth," she whispered near his ear. He closed his eyes as she leaned back with him, landing them gently on the pillows behind her. He could feel her reaching out to the side. She put the jar with the white cream in it on the table, and then she lifted up a long green piece of a plant. It had a thick, soft, spiky shape. And she squeezed it from the tip back to the opening at the end. He opened his eyes to watch her do it.

"This is aloe. It's good for burns. The cream is arnica. I use it for bruises all the time."

The fresh green plant had produced a clear gel when she squeezed the fleshy part.

Gelila reached around him, back to the center of one of the dark bruises on his chest. She let the gel drip off her fingertips to the darkest area at the center, and then moved it around, lightly, until the burn was completely covered by the gel.

"Does that hurt?" she asked.

"Stings a little," he told her, and she made a little sound near his ear. Then she reached over to the table and took another piece of aloe. She stripped it of the gel inside, and then let it fall on the dark center of another bruise, then another, and another, until she had covered each one.

There was only one thing she knew that could have made these marks. Reese had been wearing a bullet-proof vest when he showed up with Bear at her office that night. She had undressed him herself, so she knew about the purple bruises on his ribs, and one on the arm above his right wrist.

But these angry, painful ones on the chest weren't there that night. These were new. They were from gunshots into a vest, like the one he was wearing that night.

The injury from a bullet hitting a vest looked just like this: a large dark bruise from the force of the bullet slamming into the vest above the skin; and the burn mark in the center, where the fibers of the vest got so hot from stopping the bullet, that it burned the skin beneath them. She'd seen this before – but never so many on one person at one time.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Missions; favorite place on earth**

* * *

 **Manhattan, December, 2014**

In the quiet of this night, she'd held him close to her.

For hours, after she'd finished smoothing on arnica and the clear gel squeezed from aloe leaves.

She'd held him close like this against her. Rocking him gently in her arms. The two of them propped on pillows in her bed, skin to skin, his back leaning against the skin of her chest.

She could hear his breathing; soft, regular, deeper now as he'd relaxed into deeper sleep there in her arms.

The warmth of his breath fluttered the soft hairs at the crook of her elbow.

He was so warm lying there against her. She didn't want to let him go. Nothing to disturb the peace in his face, the stillness in her room. This was something so rare, so precious - these moments with him like this, holding him, coaxing him into this private space with her. Where she could work her magic. It was as though he'd been sent to her and she'd been handed this personal mission.

She was to put him at ease first, convince him that he was safe there, with her. Not an easy thing. Reese was cooler tonight, more distant when he'd come to her door for Bear.

In his eyes, exhaustion, pain. Perhaps he wasn't ready for this. So hard for him to trust, so hard for him to allow someone close like this – just like the other night in her Call Room.

Better for him to hold back now, keep his distance, stay aloof. She noticed he'd avoided her eyes tonight. Those blue blue eyes that had captured him the other night. Her eyes, so blue against the creamy brown of her skin.

Her kisses and her touch would not be enough tonight. Something else, then. They needed something else in short supply tonight.

Trust.

She didn't know if she could, either, after everything that had happened. He'd appeared from the blue one night, with Bear in his arms. She'd seen the feeling in his eyes, for Bear. Such concern. Such feeling for a dog. It had melted her on the spot, made her work through the night to save Bear. And in the morning, as she was getting ready to leave, Reese had offered to take her to breakfast. They'd lingered, talking, and she was sure that she'd felt something from him. But instead of a warm embrace, and plans to meet again, he'd pulled back instead. And then, he'd disappeared.

Instead, another man, small and rather odd, had come to get Bear. No word from Reese. For days.

And then, from the blue, he was back again with Bear, injured in a fight. Reese, too. Limping, clothes torn, hands cut and bleeding. How could she turn him away?

Something in his eyes that night. He needed her. But it wouldn't be easy. That trust thing.

So she'd pressed him, there at the Call Room door. She wasn't going to take no for an answer. Strong. She needed to be strong with him to let her in.

That night, she had melted him to submission in her arms. She'd found a way. And for a few hours he'd held her close.

But, a phone call had changed everything, taken the peace from his eyes. And he was gone again. Missing. No word for days, until today. He was coming to get Bear tonight. She'd insisted that he come here, not the office. She needed to figure this out. But when she saw him at her door, things changed again. The exhaustion, the pain in his eyes. How could she turn him away?

It was her mission then to put him at ease tonight. And if she could find a way, then she could move on with him, open him a bit more perhaps.

Little by little, she would unwrap him tonight - find and tend each wound – at least the ones she could see.

This man healed by neglect.

He ignored each wound, starved it of attention, until it packed up and left him alone once again.

Something she should bear in mind.

His older bruises were healing on his ribs, just like the one on the right arm above his wrist. And the healing cuts on his face from a spray of broken glass – they were nearly gone. But the long purple bruise that ran from the right knee, down the calf to his ankle, and then to the arch of his foot – this needed work.

The knee was the worst of the older ones, still swollen and deep purple. She'd placed a pillow under the knee to lift it up. That knee begged to be bent, not straightened. Every time he moved it, she could see the pain in his eyes.

In her heart, this small fear. If she couldn't catch him tonight, if she failed and found no way to reach him, he would leave with Bear and disappear into the night.

Elusive.

Prey for someone else.

She'd never find him again.

The knee and the bruises on his chest were the only ones that made him wince with her touch. Her long thin fingers smoothed arnica on them. Arnica was perfect for bruising. But the damage there ran deeper. When she looked closely at his knee, and the ankle and the arch of his foot, she could see marks from the same weapon that had made the long, wide bruises on his ribs. She could imagine what had made them, and how the force of the blows had changed – harder with each strike. She shuddered at the thought of a weapon wielded against him.

And on his chest, the dark purple bruises, nearly round, overlapping in a pattern over his heart. There were burn marks in the center of each overlapping circle – these were gunshots barely stopped by his vest. With her inventory over, she should be cringing and crying at the sight of all this damage. So many questions. So many feelings should be there. And yet, no.

Her mission. She just focused on that.

And when she did – when she gave no breath to her feelings – somehow that made it better. She could see it in his eyes. He needed her to be strong, a little distant, too. It put him at ease to see her that way. She could take it.

She'd started at the top, with her arnica cream and gel from the leaves of an aloe plant in her living room. One after another, slowly, she had soothed each wound. She took her time, leaning him back against her, smoothing on the cream and then the gel, while he braced himself against her in her bed. Then his back; she'd leaned him forward to smooth arnica on the bruises there. Then she slid out from behind him to reach his wrist, and the right leg resting on the pillow. She watched his eyes to see how much pressure he could bear there, and she was gentle with him, softly circling with her long thin fingers over the most painful part, then slowly moving on. At the end, his eyes were closed, and she bent down to brush her lips against each wound, one after another until she'd touched each one.

And then, when all were tended, and he was leaning back against her in her bed again, her next mission: she was to let him rest, really rest, all night there in her arms.

Still unwrapped. The two of them unwrapped. Skin to skin.

Nothing between them. Nothing to hide one from the other.

They were building trust tonight.

She needed him to know that he could trust her, and this simple act of tending him had been the start.

She leaned in nearer, her face and cheek at his neck, the smell of his warm skin rising up to her.

For hours she'd held him just like this, quietly, against her chest, cradling him in the crook of her elbow. She'd rested with him. Sleeping; then waking to find him there all over again.

Touching her lips to the skin of his neck; dragging them softly across the skin to his ear.

Breathy, she would whisper "stay."

"You're safe here, in my arms."

"Sleep."

And it had worked.

Little by little, the tension, the startle with any sound in her apartment, the vigilance – all of it had given way in her arms.

The furrow between his eyes had gone.

His face – relaxed now in the crook of her arm.

His body leaned fully into hers.

She liked the weight of him on her, stretched out long against her body, skin to skin.

So long since someone had been this close. She leaned in and brushed her lips against his neck, smelling his skin, feeling its warmth on her lips. So tender with him. Protective. She would let no harm come to him in her arms.

In a little while, she could hear soft footsteps from the other room, and then a head appeared, and a dark nose sniffed at the two of them. Bear swiveled his eyes, watching for some signal from either, and when none came, he creeped quietly up on their bed, and laid down next to them.

He would rest here, watching over them, and let no harm come to them. His mission.

 **Colorado, 1990**

Rain was falling in the deep woods. Pine, juniper, quaking aspen catching these few raindrops tapping down through the trees. He could hear their sound, tapping, tapping as the drops hit and hit again, falling from the sky down through the trees.

It was late, and the sun had gone behind the thickening clouds, until the storm had brought lightning, and thunder and a brief downpour of rain.

Reese had hiked in from the road, early in the day when it was still hot and sunny. He'd slipped into the water when he got there to cool off. This was his favorite spot, where the water pooled beneath a rocky outcrop above, and then fell away below the pool in a stream. A little further along, a large boulder stuck up straight from the stream bed, and forced it to split around it, and meet again around the other side.

The pool was wide and deep, and the water always moved through at just the right speed, keeping the water fresh and clear. A wide flat rock, tons in weight, lay half-submerged near the deepest part of the pool. After swimming, he liked to climb out on the flat rock, and dry off in the sun.

Lazy days of summer. He would sleep on the rock in the sun, the giant rock warm underneath him. And when he would wake, he would scootch over to the edge, and let his feet dangle down into the deepest part of the pool.

He liked to watch for minnows, their gray-green bodies waving in the steady current of the stream. If he sat really still, they would make their way to his toes, tickling them with the soft touch of their mouthparts.

It was everything he could do, not to shake his feet from laughing out loud. He kept it in as long as he could, and then he would lift his feet away, back onto the rock, and watch the minnows race away, while he belly-laughed. They'd come back a little later, looking for him, but he was gone.

One day, when he'd been swimming all day, in and out on his rock, playing with the minnows in the pool, he'd been crouching down on the top of the rock at the water's edge. He heard the sound of stones and soil sliding down on the opposite shore, and he looked up.

It was getting dark under the canopy of trees, and in the soft light, he saw a white-tailed deer making her way down to the water to drink. Her nose twitched, and she looked carefully for any danger, ears flicking, white tail flashing in the fading light. Then, he saw two smaller shapes behind her. Twin spotted fawns following behind her as she made her way in the soft soil on the far side of the stream. She stopped and looked around her – twitching, and flicking, and flashing.

Reese sat very still, just like with the minnows, to see what she would do. When she reached the water, she waited for her fawns, and let them start to drink while she kept watch for danger. Then she leaned down and he could see the little ripples from her tongue sipping at the surface. She raised her head again to look about, and that's when she saw him.

Her ears flicked, and her tail flashed white fur. She looked straight at him with her large dark eyes, nose twitching in his direction. It was as though she knew he was just a boy. No danger to her or her young.

She regarded him with those large dark eyes. Unafraid. He couldn't look away.

In a little while, she drew back a few steps, and raised her head higher, staring at him. Reese felt like she was about to say something, or maybe already had, and was waiting for his response. He tried to think of what to do.

And then she turned her head and looked at him again. He wanted to speak, but he didn't know what to say. She leaned forward toward him, bowing down in a low bow.

He felt like he should do the same.

Slowly, so he didn't startle her, he leaned forward on his rock, bowing low with his head, and watching her eyes. There was something there. She was telling him something, but he didn't know how to understand what she was saying.

When nothing happened, she lifted her head and stared at him one last time. Nothing.

She backed away, and turned up the hill, with her fawns following behind her. Near the top of the hill, he could see her checking all around her for danger.

He hoped she would turn around one more time to look at him, but she slid noiselessly into the trees at the top of the hill. If he listened very closely, he thought he could just hear the sound of their feet on the soft earth below the trees.

And then it was quiet.

Just the birds, and the breeze in the trees, and the gurgle of the water in the rocks above the pool.

Darkness would be there soon, and he was a long way from home – here, in his favorite place on earth.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: find Finch; "Get used to it"**

* * *

 **Manhattan, late December, 2014**

A sound. And then again.

Soft. Buzzing – it was his phone buzzing on the table next to him. Leon rolled over in bed and glanced at the clock on the table next to the buzzing rectangle.

What time was it?

He pushed himself upright in the darkness, and grabbed the phone. Strange foreign number on the screen. Who was calling him at this hour?

The party didn't wait for him to say hello; as soon as he'd made the connection, she started talking.

"There's a job for you, Leon," she said. "And there's something in it for you if you get it done fast."

Leon was shaking his head, not fully awake yet; this sounded like gibberish to his struggling brain.

But best to be careful with this one, and not let her hear his irritation. Kara Stanton was not one he should trifle with.

"What's going on? Where are you?" he said, buying time for his brain to come up to speed.

"Never mind that. There's a job for you. That's all you need to know."

Now, more awake with the sound of her tone in his ear; softly, "I'm listening."

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and sat up a little straighter. A small white pad of paper sat on the table next to the bed, but the pen wasn't there. Damn – where?

He pulled the drawer open in the table, but no pen. Then he scanned around the surfaces in his bedroom. Ah, there on the bureau, his pen.

While he went to get it, Kara was already way ahead of him on the phone. Softly, as if he were trying not to wake someone next to him in bed, "hold on. I want to write this down," and he could hear her breathing on the other end, like she was annoyed.

"Ready?" she said an instant later.

He let her go on – even though he wasn't ready. Not good to keep her waiting, and for all he knew, Greer could be sitting at her side, listening in.

"Boss wants you to focus on one thing until he gets back. And he's offering you a reward if you can do it fast." Leon had the pen in hand and sat down on the side of the bed with the pad on the table next to him.

She was saying, " there's a certain individual Boss wants to meet with – in person. He wants to arrange a little surprise in the guy's office. You need to find it in Manhattan for the Boss. Are you getting this?" she said. Not a shred of patience in her voice.

Leon thought for just a moment.

Harold Finch.

Greer would desperately like to have Harold Finch in front of him, especially since the debacle with Samaritan. And then the injury to Greer himself, and the shoot-out in the hospital. There were all kinds of rumors flying since then: that Greer was dead; that he was on life-support and someone else was running the show; that he had fled overseas and wasn't coming back.

"Leon?!"

His head snapped up with the sound of her voice.

"Ah, yes, yes. Bad connection. Couldn't tell if you were still talking. I heard you say that Mr. Gr – Boss wants me to – obtain – certain information for him. And he considers this very _valuable_ information." He was almost salivating when he heard himself say that last part out loud.

"That's right, Leon. It's gonna be a big payday for you if you come through." Then there was no sound from Kara. He suddenly realized she was waiting for him.

"Uh-yes. Yes, of course. I'm on it," he blurted, and two heartbeats later the connection went dead. She'd hung up. No fanfare. No chummy team chit-chat.

But, on the bright side, she wasn't pissed off enough yet to shoot him dead, either, the next time she laid eyes on him.

He couldn't dare fail them. Whatever it took, he wasn't going to fail.

He was awake, now, fully awake, and his brain was tingling all over. This could be his big break. He wandered out to the kitchen in his bare feet. The tile was chilly underneath them, but Leon barely noticed and went straight for the fridge. The white light inside glared, nearly blinding him in the darkness, and cold air drifted down to his feet. He stared at the shelves, browsing for a long minute – only half-aware as he re-played the phone call in his head.

When Leon turned back, he had a bottle of water from the fridge, and a handful of grapes from a bowl inside. He popped a few into his mouth and twisted the cap off the water. The cap went skidding off the rim of the garbage can five feet away, when he launched it from his hand.

He used to be so much better with his aim. With lots of things.

He thought about it – all those useful important skills he'd had back in college – fading now. He was soft; he'd let himself go.

Maybe there was still time. Once he'd made his fortune, there'd be more time. He'd get himself back into shape, have a little pride in himself again.

Once he'd made his fortune.

Nodding to himself, he went back to his bedroom to consider this new development. The white pad was still sitting on the table next to his bed, and he started jotting some notes to himself.

This might actually work out for him. He had an edge that no one on Greer's team knew about.

A while back, he'd been in a little trouble with a certain group of clients who'd caught him stealing – and wanted to kill him. But, The Man in the Suit had shown up out of nowhere, and grabbed him out of the situation. Lucky for him – things could have gone badly if Reese hadn't shown.

Reese seemed preoccupied with something else going on at the time, and finally, he'd resorted to blindfolding him and stashing him in an office somewhere in Manhattan. Reese had left him there, alone, with a giant, scary dog to guard him, while Reese went off on some other chase. He'd left him in a very particular office – in what looked like an old public library building somewhere in Manhattan.

Harold Finch's office.

So, as it turned out, he'd already been to Finch's office. He just didn't know where it was, exactly. But how many old public library buildings could there be in Manhattan?

Here was something he never guessed would come his way. They were willing to pay him for information he already had – almost.

Leon thought about it – they must be desperate. Or, maybe just so ticked off with everything that had happened to Greer and Samaritan that they'd resort to paying _him_ to find Finch. He wondered how much.

How much would it be worth for Greer to have him? Six figures? It had to be at least six figures. For Finch? Maybe more. A _big_ payday. This could be good, very good. He'd get started as soon as the sun came up this morning. He jotted a few more notes to himself, and then headed for the shower.

With the unexpected phone call waking him out of sleep, and the sound of Kara Stanton's voice on the other end, and then the promise of money – lots of money – he couldn't go back to sleep. There was work to do.

Now – how to find Finch.

 **Manhattan, late December, 2014**

She unlocked the door, quietly, and went back inside with Bear. He shook himself noisily at the door, and then followed behind her into the kitchen, ears forward, eyes alert. Luckily, she'd thought to bring dog food home with her from the office last night – just in case. She could hear him lapping water from the bowl on the floor behind her.

Gelila poured the dry food into a soup bowl from her cupboard, and sat it down next to the other one with the fresh water in it, then stepped back. She gave him the command to go and he jumped up to go to the food.

These dishes were meant for table use, not dog bowls, so the food bowl spun around and slid on the bare floor as Bear chased after it. Poor Bear. She slid it into a corner for him with her foot, and that stopped it from sliding while he finished his meal.

When he looked up again, he had that little smile on his muzzle. He took a long drink from the water bowl, then walked over to her and rubbed his head against her legs. Gelila sat down on her kitchen floor with him, smiling, hugging his head and neck. Such a great dog. She ran her hands all over his head, his neck and back in a good strong rub, rewarded by him wagging his whole body next to her, nuzzling and rubbing her neck with his wet muzzle. She giggled out loud, nuzzling him back with her cheek.

She missed having a dog of her own. Back home she'd always had dogs, cats, birds. They were like family. She couldn't remember a time without them, growing up.

Bear wanted to play, but she didn't want him to make too much noise in the apartment, and she'd just brought him back from running in the park just now. So maybe she could get him to settle in for a little nap after eating.

Speaking of naps, her plan was to let Reese sleep in for as long as he could this morning. In fact, she was a little bleary-eyed herself, from staying up so late with him last night. Maybe she'd get to crawl back in with him and sleep a little longer, too. Group nap.

She smiled to herself, thinking about Reese last night. For all of his mysterious and stoic demeanor, she had still found a way to reach him. Tending to him – that simple act of uncovering him little by little, finding all the wounds, gently tending to them. He'd allowed it. In the quiet of the night, with the lights low, and with him braced against her in her bed, he'd allowed it, and she found that she could sense things about him, eavesdrop a little bit while she was taking care of him.

She could feel the strength in him, like sinew pulled taut. It was always there, and yet the closer you got to him, the more elusive it got. It submerged out of sight, somehow. You would almost miss it, if you hadn't already sensed that it was there.

And under that, deeper down, more disturbing, was a raw-ness that he covered over with this more polished exterior of his. But she could feel it. Inside him, deeper down, beneath the polish – something less civilized. That was the word that popped into her head, anyway. It made her think of someone living at the edge, lawless, with his own rules, living outside the boundaries of normal people.

For her, that raw-ness, that strength, that less-civilized feeling was something rare, precious. It drew her to him like the best scent, filled her up with this delicious ache inside, an ache to hold on to it, to breathe it into herself. Intoxicating.

She could feel her pulse quicken, and the heat starting to rise inside as she thought of it. Reese was like a fine, wild stallion on the hill, off in the distance, always surveying, watching over his herd, restless, always moving on. It left her a little breathless.

How crazy was this? This strange man who had dropped into her life in the middle of the night one night. He'd brought in Bear – in trouble. And she'd done her best to save him. And Reese had seemed so genuinely thankful, so concerned about Bear's welfare. But then he was gone. Almost like he'd abandoned Bear. And another had come in his place.

Then back again, with Bear. So concerned – even though Reese was hurt himself. He'd put Bear before himself.

She was confused. What was going on? What was happening to them? How did they get themselves so injured like that? No answers.

She didn't want to let him get away again. So, she'd reached out, tentatively at first, looking for a sign. And she'd found it, in his eyes, in his touch. He'd let her see in a little bit; inside, where the real man lived. But, just a glimpse.

At her door, inside her Call Room that night, she'd pushed him. He'd come there of his own free will. He'd given her the opening. And with that first press of her lips against his in the darkness, she could feel the strength, stretched taut inside him, held back, but straining. It excited her to feel it, and the more she pressed, the more she could sense the rest.

Reese had a sense of violence around him, and it should have made her wary at the feeling of it. But it didn't. It wasn't wanton, indiscriminant-type violence – but something that felt more controlled. Like a soldier's.

She wasn't afraid of him.

She wasn't sure what she felt.

This was crazy. How could one person turn her world upside down like this?

She was too tired to think about it any more. She looked up at Bear. His eyes were bright, and he smiled back with his muzzle.

"I wish you could talk, Bear," she said, rubbing his neck, and scratching the base of his ears. He started to prance, thinking she was ready to play, but she shushed him. They went together into the living room, still dim in the morning light. It was going to be cloudy and cold all day. A perfect day to spend in bed.

They made their way through the living room, to the bedroom, and Gelila gave Bear the command to stay, on the rug next to the side of her bed. She pulled off her sweats, and her cotton tee, quietly. She could hear Reese breathing. She lifted the blankets, and slid in, under the sheet. He stirred, but she reached around him with her arm, whispering, "go back to sleep – it's early yet."

A smile came over his face. Her British accent. It always made him smile.

"You're cold," he said.

"I took Bear out for a run. It's cold outside, and cloudy. Like London in the winter." She smiled.

"Is it time for me to go?" he asked, hoping she'd say no.

"No, no, no," she said softly, "I'm not done with you yet." She leaned closer against him, so warm under the blankets. She heard him gasp a little when she slid herself next to him, skin to skin.

She giggled, and he groaned.

"I'm sure this qualifies as cruel and unusual punishment," he said, smiling, and groaning, and trying to pull away as she pressed even harder into him.

"Get used to it," she said, her arm around him, pulling him closer.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: find Reese; To her shore**

* * *

 **Manhattan, late December, 2014**

 **Please note** **: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...**

It was cold today, blustery, and grit from the street came flying up, stinging against his face in the wind, flapping his collar against his cheek.

No matter.

In his memory, home, the swish of grasslands just outside his door – incessant wind, big sky, the smell of tall grass bending in the wind, and charcoal burning.

Home. Always there behind his eyes. Whenever he wanted, he could go there in his mind. So strong was the pull of home.

Shaved head, round face, Ping pulled his jacket a little closer to his neck, held the collar from snapping in the wind against him.

He smelled _jow_ on his hands, a fragrance like liniment, so thoroughly a part of him that he could not imagine a day without it on his skin. The dark brown elixir – brought, in glass, all this way from a cask buried deep in the ground near his home. Brought here from his home in the Steppes – down through Hong Kong; across the sea by tramp ship, to Portland; then cross-country, hitching by freight train, here, to New York.

Queens was so different from his home in the Steppes. So crowded; like cities back home in China. Cars, buses, fumes, bright lights, throngs of people around every corner.

Building after nameless building crowded together, dense-packing people into a few tight blocks.

Far from the sweet, tall grass, and the incessant wind that sang him to sleep each night.

Far from the giant yellow moon that hung all night in the black sky – like a cold eye – watching, but unmoved.

Far from the land where ancestors walked, fought, died. Generations before him, and still present, their spirits forever walking the grasslands. Invisible, but keenly felt.

Queens was so different from his home.

No matter. Whenever he wanted it, he could go there in his mind.

Ping looked down, shielding his eyes from the stinging grit kicked up by the cold fitful wind. He had come to Manhattan from Queens today, with a mission.

He pocketed his phone and considered the conversation. The woman, Kara Stanton, had called him from a ship, but did not tell him where. They had spoken in Mandarin of new plans. His benefactor, Mr. Greer, ordered him to find the tall American, the one who wore the suit and white shirt to battle.

Ping shook his head. There was nothing predictable about this man, this American. He was uneducated, ignorant in the ways of battle, and yet, something of a warrior. Like none Ping had ever fought before.

The American was uneducated in the Way. He followed no Master.

He was ignorant of the way to prepare for battle – even how to dress for battle.

He knew nothing of how to care for his wounds. He knew nothing of _jow,_ nothing of bone-setting, nothing of how to use energy in battle – or in healing himself after. Profound ignorance.

And yet.

In him there was a flash of internal strength that Ping had not expected. A flash of power that had come at just the right moment to save him. As though he had walked the Warrior's Way before. As though he had summoned the s _pirit of the thing itself_ to him. Like a Warrior.

Ping had seen it in his eyes – when he'd surprised him in the basement, leaping from the shadows, swinging the long wooden pole, slashing toward his head. The American had sensed it coming, and pulled back just in time. The pole slashed across his wrist instead.

Across the _right_ wrist, dominant side for most people. And Ping had been sure to aim for the one spot that would cripple the hand for hours, render it useless for gripping, for holding a weapon, for fighting with the hands.

But with his left hand, the American had flung a rope up, tangling the whirling pole in its coils – a Warrior's move. It had turned the tide of battle to his favor, changed defeat into escape.

Ping considered for a moment the battle – as he had seen it in his mind.

A slashing blow to the top of the right shoulder, numbing the arm on that side, the American lurching out with his right foot to gain balance – and then the whistling sound of the wooden pole whirling in the air – as Ping stepped back and to the left.

In one motion, Ping would swing the pole over his head, whirling, then down around to his right, gaining speed, slashing his pole to the inside of the right knee. Just where he'd seen the Zheng break the bone with the wood baton that night in the basement. The American was still wounded there, limping, vulnerable.

Ping's slashing pole would take the knee out from under him.

Right leg, right arm. Useless after two blows. The American would be down, helpless to stop him. A final blow would finish him, if he chose. Ping nodded to himself.

The next battle was coming.

He could feel it.

Ping could feel energy gathering around him, attracting their two spirits together, to meet - at just the right moment.

There was work to do to prepare. Iron palm. Meditation. Practicing his form. Time immersing himself into the rhythm and the flow of his life-long Practice.

One goal. To defeat the enemy. He would defeat the American.

On the phone, Kara Stanton had told him where to look. In Manhattan, she had already found the tall American – the one who wore the suit and white shirt to battle.

She'd told him where to look – she'd told him how to find Reese.

 **Manhattan, late December, 2014**

Wind whistled around the brick corner, three stories up, rattling something metal out on the balcony. Bear lifted his head and listened, ears forward, cocking his head to one side, but not rising from his spot.

Light was still dim in the apartment, as if this were just after dawn, rather than noon.

Still cloud-covered, cold, and windy out there.

More rattling on the balcony.

This time Bear got up and jogged to the french doors, pushing the curtain to one side with his nose, staring outside there. Left, right, up and back to the gray concrete – nothing caught his attention. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the wind. The fitful wind, that rattled the metal table out there – one leg a bit shorter than the others, so tipping it and rattling it in the wind.

When nothing happened, he turned back to his spot, banished to the other side of the bedroom door, on the carpet, where he curled himself and settled in. He could hear them on the other side.

* * *

Reese stood at the side of her bed, where she'd dropped her sweats and tee on the floor before. His toes wiggled against the softness. He could smell her soap on him, fresh from a shower down the hall. He liked to watch her like this, in the dim light, stretched out with her shoulder showing above the edge of the comforter. He couldn't see her face, just the long line of her cheek and jaw, her long neck, and the outline of her collar bone. He thought of the softness of her skin under his fingertips, the fullness of her lips, the way she dragged them across the skin of his neck.

And when he thought of her like that, when she was stretched out full length like this, like the other night – on him, her chest on his, her belly on his, and her thigh full length against his – it made him breathe a little harder.

It would be so easy to stay.

Slip in between the sheets; reach for her. He could feel it – how warm she'd be, asleep for hours next to him in bed. He could see her stirring when he reached for her; turning, smiling when she found him there with her.

Perhaps she'd reach out, too. Pull him closer. Whisper something near his ear. Make him smile.

But then, overcome with her, breathing in the scent of her soap: on her, on him, mingling, heated by their skin so close to one another. He could see where this would lead. Her lips would touch him, and he would feel the heat of her breath, sighing, on the way to his.

So easy to let it happen. Let her melt him all over again. Empty him. Leave him adrift - like a boat on a quiet river, deep in pine woods.

He breathed it in – he could almost smell the pines, hear the water lapping at the sides.

But, what if.

What if he didn't. What if he found his clothes, dressed in the dim light, left her there, dreaming her dreams, alone in her bed.

He could just walk away. Keep things simple. Let it be.

So easy to just walk away right now.

He closed his eyes for a moment, head down. In his mind, he was remembering a dream. It all came back to him as he stood at her bedside, watching her sleep.

He was at the beach, looking out at the water at dusk, the line of water at the horizon slowly rising and falling in the dimming light, like the Earth breathing. So quiet there, except for the roll of waves coming in on the beach. And then, her hand was on his shoulder. Joss was there.

"Let's walk," she'd said – and she took him by the hand down onto the sand. At first, he hadn't wanted to look at her. He kept his eyes away, anywhere but her face.

She'd asked how he was doing, and he'd mumbled something back. She wouldn't take that as an answer.

"I have eyes, John," she'd said. Joss had seen them together in the diner, when he'd taken Gelila to breakfast after she'd worked through the night to save Bear.

Just breakfast. Nothing more, he'd thought. What was Joss saying?

"I think you chose well," she'd said. Chose?

He hadn't.

This was nothing. This was nothing. He hadn't chosen.

What was Joss saying?

This was really nothing.

He could leave at any time.

Any time.

Even now.

But-

What if.

What if he dropped the towel from his waist, dropped it on the soft sweats she'd left on the floor at his feet.

What if he just slid in, in between the sheets. Reached for her.

He knew where this would lead.

Like a boat adrift -

To her shore.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: But not Grace**

* * *

 **Manhattan, late December, 2014**

 **Please note** **: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...**

The diner where Harold Finch always ate his breakfast was crowded this morning – crowded with holiday shoppers, some heading home from shopping all night, and some fresh and ready for the full-court press in these last few days before Christmas.

Christmas.

It used to mean something to Harold. But in the years since Grace had been away, it had sunk to the status of an obligatory ritual in his mind.

Almost an annoyance. The traffic, the congestion, the throngs of manic shoppers on every street, with that look in their eyes: get out of my way!

Something was lost in the event.

He thought of Grace. How she had enjoyed Christmas so, when she was here.

How she'd planned for months ahead to surprise him with little gifts, many handmade with her own hands. She liked to give to charities in his name, too. She even named a star after him one year.

And he, in his turn, loved to take her to the pageants, the Christmas shows, the museums. They liked to walk past the Christmas storefront displays, stunning with their intricate designs – at off-times, of course, when the rest of the world was sleeping.

They would steal away late at night and walk the streets – certainly not alone. Plenty of people had the same idea. But everyone out there at that time of night was in a good mood, friendly, chatting about the wonder of each display. The two of them were like children, ogling the displays, ooh'ing and ahh'ing like everybody else.

Those were happy times.

Grace liked to nest during the holidays – stay home with him. She cooked hot, homey dinners that they enjoyed together in front of a crackling fire in her apartment. He grew to love that apartment. Where Grace had come as a frightened young girl to live, years before. Tragedy had taken her parents – dead in a terrible car accident.

Grace herself had walked away with barely a scratch. Harold remembered the look in her eyes as she recounted the story to him; how the police and EMTs at the scene couldn't believe that anyone had come through the crash. It was a miracle, they'd said. Well, not for her.

She'd gone to live with an older, childless couple, an Aunt and Uncle, far from her home in Ohio. At first, she'd refused to speak. Her life was unspeakable after all. She would sit by the window, looking out at the Boulevard in front of their apartment. Life never seemed to cease out there. Their street in Manhattan was a never-ending parade of humanity – filing past her window each day. It drew her in.

Eventually, she'd noticed another young girl, just about her age, who was there on the Boulevard nearly every day. Grace began to feel disappointed on those days when the girl wasn't there. And one day Grace noticed that the girl had seen her sitting at the window. At first she'd just looked at Grace. Then, she'd smiled a shy smile. And then she'd waved. Grace stood up from her seat and looked down the hill in front of her apartment – so she could get a better look. Without thinking, she'd smiled and waved back.

"I wonder what her name is," she'd said out loud, and when she heard a sound behind her, she'd turned and found her Aunt and Uncle staring at her, their eyes suddenly wet with tears. It was over. The long weeks of silence and despair. She'd come through it, to the other side, and now she was ready to begin the healing.

Grace had grown up in that apartment, returned to it when she graduated from college. And when her Aunt and Uncle had finally passed, they'd passed the apartment to her, and their fortune, too. They had adored her, brought her up as their own. They had made a life for her that she could never have even dreamed for herself.

She'd spent her days painting. Her passion. Painting the covers for magazines, the old-fashioned way, with brushes and oils, not computer screens. In fact, that's how Harold had met her. One day, when he was walking near the water, he'd been captivated by a sunset off in the West. He'd stopped to take in the beauty, and he'd noticed someone at a canvas, pausing to enjoy the same sunset. He'd moved closer to see the work, and when he'd said out loud, "the sunsets are beautiful here," she'd turned to him – smiling, and he had felt something at that moment that he'd never felt in his life.

Now, he knew for himself – how rare and precious was such a thing as love at first sight.

Harold sipped his tea; Sencha tea, his favorite. His waitress stopped by to ask if he wanted anything else. And his thoughts turned to Grace. For a moment, he was going to say it out loud. But, then his better judgment intervened, and he just shook his head and said no.

Her eyes were soft, as though she had sensed his feelings, and she nodded his way.

"OK, then, Mr. Wren, have a nice day. See you tomorrow." She collected his money and beamed a "thank you" when Harold told her to keep the change.

As he rose to leave, something on the other side of the glass window caught his attention. A woman was walking by, and he'd just had a fleeting glance at her features. The curve of her cheekbone, the shape of her nose, the auburn hair, styled just like Grace used to wear. And her clothes. Her figure. Just like Grace's. His heart started pounding. Could it be? Could she have somehow come here, to New York? At Christmas; it was Christmas – her favorite time of year in New York.

Impossible – probably.

Improbable – there was just no thinking-it-through, logically. He just had to know!

Harold rushed forward to the front door, past the cashier, who was calling after him, and then looked surprised when he didn't acknowledge. He was limping as fast as he could, to catch up. The diner was filled, and it had held him back, threading his way through the crowded aisles.

He rushed out onto the street, swallowed in a sea of shoppers. Harold could just barely see the wool beret, her auburn hair shaking with her footsteps as she walked. She had to thread her way, too, through the same holiday revelers. Harold was afraid he'd lose her in the throng.

He pushed on. He couldn't let her get too far ahead. His gimpy leg was already aching, and the cold air was burning with each breath in his chest. He'd never reach her – she was already so far ahead. Harold pushed himself. He just had to know if it was really her.

Then up ahead, he saw the wool beret change direction, turn to the right, turn into a doorway. Harold nearly tripped over someone in the crowd, trying to crane to see where she had gone. He mumbled an apology and pushed on, distracted by the effort to keep his eyes on the door up ahead where she'd turned.

Too long. It was taking too long to make it there. She'd be gone. And he'd never know.

Harold pushed himself toward the door – where he thought she'd gone inside. He pulled open the door, and threw himself in, away from the crowds and the cold air. Into the darkness, the deeply-carpeted, hushed darkness, where electric candles flickered at each table, and day was transformed into night.

It took a minute for his eyes to adjust. And there, as he scanned around the room, there just sliding her coat onto the back of her seat, he caught sight of her. Just seating herself, the light from the flickering candlelight dancing on her face, the curve of her jaw, the line of her lips, and her auburn hair.

He stepped a little closer.

She was sitting, looking up at the figure across the table from her, smiling. She knew him, had feelings for him. Harold stopped in his tracks. Perhaps he didn't really want to know, after all. Perhaps it was better if he just backed away, left her alone, left her behind.

He dropped his eyes to the floor and breathed a deep breath, letting it out in a soft sigh. He could only blame himself.

It was time to go. His face was hard, drawn into a grimace. This wasn't going to be easy. If he could only have some time. Talk with her. Time was all they needed.

He could explain – what had happened back then, when things went off the track.

When he'd made those decisions that had separated the two of them.

He'd realized it now. He'd made the decision for both of them. He'd never consulted her. He'd just wanted to keep her safe.

So he'd let her think that he had died – there on the dock that day, with the blast that had taken Nathan – Harold had let Grace believe that it had taken him, too. To keep her safe.

So wrong.

About everything.

It hadn't protected her. She was still a target, even though he'd done his best to hide her. They'd still found her, taken her from his hiding place in Italy; hurt her.

So wrong. He should have asked her. They should have done it together. She would have wanted to know. They could have faced it together.

When he looked up again, their eyes met, and she looked right through him, as though she didn't know him.

It almost didn't matter that she wasn't Grace at all. Close. Like she could have been her sister.

But not Grace.

Harold made the decision then.

He had to see her.

It was Christmas.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: didn't fix it(rated T for adult themes)  
**

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 **Manhattan, late December, 2014**

 **Please note** **: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...**

From her bed Root could hear the wind blowing outside her window. It sounded like a gale blowing out there. Cold. Like the heart inside her chest.

This was an impossible situation; an impasse. How was she supposed to go on after this?

The angry words, the fight. She hadn't meant for it to end like this tonight.

She'd wanted something else.

But, she was here – alone in her bed, instead. She was shaking now, almost nauseous with the feeling of betrayal.

How could she have let this go so far?

It was pointless to stay in bed. She couldn't sleep. Not now. She sat up and threw her legs over the edge of the bed.

That hurt.

The strain of the muscles in her back and neck, the little rush of wobble when she first sat up. She lifted her hand to the painful spot on her cheek. It would leave a bruise. Another in the long run of them since Washington, D.C.. She'd have to learn how to duck.

She tipped herself forward onto her feet. Yes, everything hurt – like she'd been hit by a Mack truck. A Mack truck named Sameen.

It hadn't started out that way. When Reese had left, the two of them were alone in the safehouse. Sameen was stretched out on the couch in the living room. She was looking at her cell, reading through messages, looking for something from Him.

It wasn't long before she'd started to get up – the painful process of rolling to one side and dropping her legs over the side of the couch, letting the weight of them swing her upper body off the surface. Her wounds were from the gunfire at the hospital, all the bruises and the smell of burnt skin from the bullets that had penetrated her vest. Every time she reached, or lifted, or pushed off with her arms, the chest wall cried out below them. She hated this. The time it took for all of it to go away. And the pain, too. The pain. She could deal with that – but the frustration from having to stay there, in the safehouse, wasting time. She had no patience for that.

By this third day, to say that her mood had decompensated wasn't even close to the truth.

She was like a caged animal. Glaring at everyone around her. Refusing to eat. Living on coffee. Root had never seen her like this. She'd tried to help. But Sameen wasn't having it. She would turn away, head for the kitchen, or her bedroom, in the back of the apartment.

Root longed for something else.

That night, when Greer's assassins had come through the door, firing, Root had been standing next to Sameen, outside the door to the SICU - where He was. Sameen was on her way in, when Root saw her pass by in the hallway. She'd jumped up to intercept her. To keep her from going in to spend time with Him, instead of her. Sameen had stopped to talk – but then all Hell had broken loose, gunshots everywhere, people running.

Root had left her gun in her bag – on the floor behind her, next to the couch.

As Sameen had started to turn toward the shots, she'd hesitated. She knew that Root was unarmed, and had no vest. In that moment, she'd turned back, to push Root away, down on the floor, skidding her backwards on the tile floor, away from the carnage.

In that moment, Sameen was exposed. Root remembered the recoil of her body as Sameen was hit, and hit again. And beyond her, in Root's line of sight, she could see the Big Lug, Reese, taking a knee, too, hit in the chest by Greer's assassins.

By the time she'd recovered her senses, the lights had gone out, and sparks were flying everywhere from the ceiling. People were screaming, stampeding toward the door of the unit, in the dark. Root scrambled for her bag, dumping it to get to her gun. She'd run forward to the wall, near where she'd been standing with Sameen. There was a commotion in front of her, Sameen reaching out for someone rushing past her on her left. Root saw her grabbing for clothing, and flinging the person down on the floor, out of the way.

But in the light from the hallway, Root could see one of the assassins raising her gun. Root raised hers, too, to shoot, but then she saw someone just beyond the shooter, someone in the hallway, steps beyond. If she missed with her shot, Harold was right there. She'd hesitated for just that second. And Sameen had jumped, in that second, on the floor in front of the one she'd thrown down there. Gunfire. Sparks falling everywhere from the ceiling, chaos.

And then silence. Root remembered the silence.

She'd run forward, looking for Sameen. Harold was there. Somehow, Reese was down on the floor next to Harold. There were men on the floor in a pool of blood. It looked like a massacre out there.

And she found herself kneeling down on the floor next to Sameen. The sparks glinted off the metal embedded in her vest. At the center, over the heart, the vest was shredded. Another shot there would have gone straight through.

Kill shots, every one.

Root shuddered. The thought of it chilled her to the bone. This was so screwed up. How could it have ended up like this?

Sameen had saved her life that night. Had hesitated when she could have fired. She'd turned back to push her out of the gunfire.

Vest or no vest. Sameen had put her life on the line to save her.

Who would do that? Who would do that, if they didn't care? That's why this hurt so much. That's why the bitterness was so strong.

That bitter taste in her mouth. Sauced with the taste of blood from the gash inside her cheek, where Sameen had struck her. It hadn't had to end this way.

When Root saw Sameen getting up from the couch, she knew where she was headed. To the shower, to get ready for Him. She couldn't let it happen. She had to stop her from going. She could take care of Sameen herself, here, in the safehouse.

Root could hear Sameen in the hallway, then the bathroom. In a little while, Root could hear the water running in the shower. She'd hurried down the hall, her heart pounding in her chest. Steam curled from the top of the glass, and sank down, swirling in the cooler air outside the shower. She'd pulled off her shirt, and the jeans, and the rest. She stepped forward into the mist.

"Root." Sameen was looking at her through the glass.

"What are you doing?"

Root kept moving. She stood for an instant at the shower door.

"Root."

She opened it, and the hot mist rolled out around her. She stepped in.

Sameen didn't back away. She held her ground. Looking in her eyes.

"Root. This isn't going to work." Her face was blank. No emotion in Sameen's eyes.

"I know who you are, Sameen. I know what you need." Root's eyes were pleading. So tender. So vulnerable in this moment. She reached out for her in the mist, pulling her toward her in the spray. Sameen's face was blank. No emotion in her eyes.

Root leaned forward. This was everything she'd wanted. Closer. Closer. Now, that first touch. The sweetness of that first touch. Her lips were so close.

Then touching. Touching. For a second, Root thought she could feel her responding, pressing in against her. But then, her hands came up and shoved her back against the glass.

"Root. Don't." The spray from the shower was in Sameen's hair, the glossy mane inviting Root's touch. This couldn't be what she meant. She was playing. Sameen foreplay.

Well, Root could be rough, too. She sprang forward, throwing Sameen back to the glass, too. And then, Root was on her, sinking her teeth into Sameen's lower lip.

They struggled in the shower, Root holding her back against the glass, kissing her, for just a second. And then the shove, sending her reeling back against the handles behind her. It knocked the wind from her.

"Get off me!" Sameen's face had turned to rage.

Root snapped. Her fist came up, swinging around to Sameen's face.

The block with her left arm caught Root's punch before it landed. The force of her block threw Root backwards, and the pop in the cheek from Sameen's open palm threw her head back against the tile.

Root was stunned. And hurting.

She reached up with the back of her hand to her left cheek. She could already taste the blood in her mouth from the cut inside, where the cheek had exploded into the point of a tooth, like a starburst.

She couldn't look at her. She didn't want to see what was in her eyes right now.

Root pushed the door open, stepped out on the mat and reached for a towel. In the mist, she stepped quickly from the bathroom, down the hall, and into her room.

In the bathroom, the shower spray died, and the drips from the shower head above her finally stopped. Her skin was wet, and the colder air from the hallway and the bathroom started to cool her skin, goose flesh forming. She turned, finally, and stepped from the empty shower, out onto the mat, where Root's wet footprints were – cold on the bottom of her feet. She reached for a towel and in the foggy mirror, watched her image form. She barely recognized herself.

Reese was right. Before he left, he had told her. This strain between the two of them had to get handled. Fight it out, or fix it somehow, he'd told her.

Interesting words. She could confidently say she didn't fix it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: high places; _I Know I Dream_**

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 **Please note** **: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...**

 ** **Dakar, Senegal, West Africa, late December, 2014****

The last night before Dakar – the city in Senegal where the _Argos_ would dock, before finally heading off on its interrupted mission, further down the coast.

In his private stateroom, Dr. Steele had hosted his three guests for their farewell dinner. All were mending well in the days since they'd flown off the helipad in New York, then out to sea, to meet the _Argos_. For more than a week now, they'd been steaming back to the coast of West Africa, where the hospital ship would set up for its year-long operation.

Soon, there would be helicopter transports, decks filled with troops ferrying supplies and personnel to the desperate and dying on shore. Ebola. They'd come from England, by way of New York, to contain and eradicate Ebola in Sierra Leone.

But first, this little side-trip to Dakar.

Steele pushed his plate back away from him, and leaned forward onto his folded arms. As usual, the two women had been virtually silent throughout dinner, and John Greer had done most of the talking. Steele was keenly aware that the two women watched every interaction, especially his facial expressions, posture, and gestures. It was all disquieting for a man like Steele, who was used to being the one in charge.

But then, Greer must have signaled them that they needed to ratchet it back – because Steele noticed the scrutiny had stopped and the two women were more animated, bantering back and forth with him as if they'd been friends for years. Steele wondered who these women were. There was nothing normal about them, and he could see now how they took subtle cues from Greer as if the three had choreographed this dance for years, knew each move, could anticipate each step by the others.

They were professionals, whatever these women were. _Cold-blooded, lethal, efficient_ were the words that came to mind. His skin crawled a bit in their presence. And the only thing he could imagine worse than the feeling of these two coming after him would be facing the ones who had stopped them cold in Manhattan. Someone had nearly put them in the ground, and Steele had no death wish – no desire to tangle with any of them. Whatever mission they had had, there was unfinished business, something that threatened to boil over in their midst – and the sooner they were off his ship, the happier he'd be.

He'd seen that look in their eyes before. A certain kind of man – or woman. Like a sniper, or SAS, SBS. With that hunger, an insatiable hunger for something that was just beyond reach. No matter what they'd been sent to do, by whomever had sent them to do it, they were never done. There was always one more mission, one more hot spot or bad guy or mess to be cleaned up, somewhere. And whatever they gave of themselves, it could never be enough. Truth be told, though, there was no other place for them to go. Theirs was a talent with few outlets. Where else could they do what they did best?

So, when the two women rose after dinner, and left him alone with Greer at the table – for coffee and an after-dinner drink or two – Steele didn't mind at all. He was a little relieved. The odds were better with the two of them out of the room; although, he had no doubt that Greer, even at this late stage in his career, could be as cold-blooded, and lethal, and efficient as the women were. Perhaps more so. Steele sat back in his chair, and reached for his own glass when Greer abruptly lifted his in a thank-you toast.

"Richard, I must commend you and your staff for everything you've done for us. Without you and your efforts, I'm certain there would have been funerals to attend instead of this excellent meal. We are grateful for all of your expert care." They clinked glasses, and drank down the cognac. Steele noticed the wince as Greer raised his glass. The chest wound would be painful for weeks, talking to him every time he raised his arm or used it, or even tried to sleep at night. Those fractured ribs, and the strain in the soft tissues lower down, from the chest tube jammed between. Greer hid it well, though. He was used to playing hurt. He was one of those with the hunger in his eyes.

Greer poured another round, while Steele settled back, deciding to nurse his drink along. He kept it in his hand, off the table, away from Greer's pouring hand. Steele preferred to stay fully alert and aware around these three. There was something troubling about them, something he couldn't quite articulate, but was tugging at him.

"The entire operation went off smoothly, John. Once we'd been sent the new orders, we turned around and made good speed back toward New York. We've done maneuvers with Navy Seals before, but frankly, the intel coming to us was sketchy. We didn't know what to expect until you'd already landed and we had the three of you down in our trauma bay."

Greer nodded.

And then Steele watched him tighten up, ever so slightly, perhaps anticipating a push now for more, more details of how they'd come to be wounded like that. A push for more of the story, now that it was their last day on-board, and the two men were alone, out of earshot of the others. But, Steele held back instead. He picked a safer topic.

"We're docking tomorrow morning in Dakar, John. That's as far as we can take you. We're heading for Sierra Leone." Steele looked up at Greer's face while he told him about their next mission.

"I'm sure you've heard of the Ebola epidemic going on in West Africa. We're heading for Sierra Leone to take part in the response to the outbreak. West Africa is not the place to be right now, John. You should head back to safer ground – London, Paris, Brussels. We'll be in the thick of it in days."

"Oh?" Greer raised his eyebrows. "How long, Richard?"

"About a year, perhaps a little more," he said. Greer could see the look in Steele's eyes. The humanity there. Even a hard-boiled surgeon like him. How much suffering had he witnessed through the years? How much more now, with this new mission? Greer shook his head and spoke softly, letting his voice and his face show the strain, his own fatigue. For just a moment it was good not to have to hide it.

"That's a tough assignment, Richard. Poor bastards. Such a weak response from all these hapless governments. Too little, too late. And now, if it's not controlled, you could have Ebola in London, or anywhere in Europe. Terrifying thought, Richard." He tipped his glass back and sipped cognac.

Steele looked into Greer's eyes. Icy blue. The cold look in his eyes didn't match the words from his lips.

Vintage Greer. It gave Steele the same skin crawl the two women had given him earlier.

He smiled to himself.

Steele had no doubt that if he asked Greer, point-blank, about the failed mission in New York, Greer would oblige him with a story: carefully-worded, detailed, all the while intimating that he shouldn't be sharing this, but since Steele was a trusted friend from years ago, and had saved their skins, after all, that Greer owed him.

And Steele knew, of course, that it would be lies – all lies. Lies spoken, sincerely, by Greer with those same icy blue eyes. The ones that didn't match the words from his lips. Steele wondered if men like Greer even remembered the real truth. Or whether the real truth even mattered any more.

He decided he wouldn't bother asking.

Clearly, the Home Office back in London had made their decision. Greer and his people were high value operatives. The U.S. Government had asked for help, and the British had responded. That's all Steele knew, and all he was ever likely to know of this mission. More was above his pay grade.

Strings had been pulled and the right things had happened to save Greer and his two assistants. There had obviously been some kind of firefight somewhere in Manhattan, and U.S. Navy Seals had deployed to get them out. A mission like that must have come from high up in the U.S. Government. High up. John Greer had friends in high places. On both Continents.

 **Rome, Italy, late December, 2014**

Afternoon, after a long flight, but he'd gone straight there, where he knew she'd be.

Her hair was longer, swept up in a bun on the top of her head. He could see they were getting ready for dinner, and she was out calling to the children, walking down the narrow street, calling them again. The boys didn't want to come in. She stood with her hands on her hips, and then after a minute, laughing, she took off after them, and they scattered in all directions away from her, rolling an old soccer ball among them, teasing her. Every time she neared one, another cut across her path and they passed the ball to him, just out of reach. For a few minutes, she tried. And then, she stopped, laughing, winded, bending forward with her hand on her chest; the children surrounding her in the narrow street.

Further down, near the door to their building, a small white van drove up. And then another. And another. The drivers jumped out, and ran around to the backs of the vans. Grace looked over, questioning, walking back toward the courtyard. Then she stopped, frozen in her tracks, and motioned for the children to stay where they were. Harold could see it in her eyes. The momentary thought that this could be something wrong – all over again. Something wrong. And the children would see it, see her struggle, see her dragged away. And then the next thought. Why so many vans? The children. No, not the children, too.

Grace saw the door to their building open, and two young girls came out, arm in arm, calling to her, calling them all in for dinner. Grace turned, and told the boys to scatter, and turned back the other way. The vans were between her and the girls. She shouted to them, in Italian.

"Go back, children. Go back inside." Grace stood frozen to her spot, looking back to the boys, and then to the girls. Harold's heart sank. He could see the panic in her face, and this was all his fault. He should have thought about it, planned it better. He'd just wanted to make her happy.

And then, the gifts began to roll out of the vans, onto the street. Bikes, and balls, and dolls, spilling out in piles onto the street, the drivers cheerfully calling to Grace in Italian. Harold watched the transformation in her face. From panic, to questioning, to relief, and finally, pleasure – as the drivers told her of the gifts sent there from America. A special plane all the way from America, sent there, full of toys for the children – for Christmas.

Harold watched her, from the empty cantina across the street, up high on the third floor, where his footsteps on the floor kicked up dust into the air, the particles dancing in the sunlight streaks from the afternoon sun. The dust tickled his nose, and made his eyes water. Just the dust. That's all it was.

He dared not stand too close to the window, where she could catch sight of him.

Seeing her now, with the flush of excitement in her face, watching the children's faces as they surrounded the piles of toys; it was worth all the work to make it happen.

He had thought of going with Winston to one of the big-box toy stores, walking through the aisles, filling carts with every conceivable toy. Quicker, but not satisfying somehow. It wouldn't have been what Grace would do.

And then, it came to him. Grace's favorite neighborhood children's store, the one she'd been supporting for years, saving it from extinction as traffic went off for cheaper prices to the giant toy stores next to the Malls. The ones like warehouses, with aisle after bursting aisle filled with mindless plastic, colorful, useless stuff; ones where help was hard to find, and good help even harder.

Grace preferred the local one, small and cozy, with the little bell over the top of the door that rang softly with each one entering or leaving. The one with the little chairs, that held the little customers, who were encouraged to sit for awhile, and play; or curl up on the rug and friendly stuffed animals, polar bears and lions sharing space under the wooden stairs, where the kids could lean back and read. And you could ask anyone who worked there, where to find anything, and her face would light up, or his grin would show. Off they would take you to the spot where it would be, just a few steps away from wherever you stood.

That's where he had gone, instead. And just a few days before Christmas, when traffic was low, just before closing. He'd arrived, and they didn't know him from Adam, but he knew _them_ , each one, by name. Grace had told him their stories, and he recognized each from the hearing of them.

First one, then another, and another. Soon, all were engaged in this treasure hunt. Smiling. Laughing. Choosing the perfect set of books for a four-year old, or a bike for a ten-year old, or new soccer balls to replace the worn ones in the cans at the side of the courtyard. For Harold, this was nourishment for his soul. A pleasure so deep it surprised him. Why hadn't he thought of it before?

And now, to see their faces, staring at the gifts, not certain what to do at first. They kept looking at Grace, then the toys, then Grace, who was telling them that someone from America had sent them. Grace looked to the drivers for some name, someone she could thank in a letter from the children. But none came. There was no name. Just the wrapping paper with the name of the neighborhood toy store. He wondered if she would remember. After everything that Greer had done to take her memories away. Would she remember the little store, in the neighborhood, near the apartment that she had brought him home to? He wondered if she could remember.

And just then, the driver of the first van appeared with a special gift. Just for Grace. Just a card, addressed to her, and a small, thin, square package taped to a larger, bulkier one, also addressed to her. She hefted its weight, and Harold could see the pleasure in her face, the anticipation of what was inside.

It reminded him of her face, at home, in their apartment when they'd opened presents on Christmas morning. He loved to tease her with little hints. Where to look in the apartment – where he had hidden her presents. It was like a scavenger hunt, and as she closed in, he could see the delight growing in her eyes. And then that other look – that one he was missing from her eyes, missing it for so long.

Harold watched her pull off the wrapping and look at the square in her hands. A music CD, and then as if understanding, she ripped away the wrapping from the player he'd sent to play it. She looked at the singer's name. Unfamiliar. But the name of the piece. She smiled. He saw her smile. Perhaps, some hope. He nodded his head. The perfect wish for her from him. He wanted to make it true, give her back again what had been stolen from her. He wanted this song to be the start of something wonderful, something he could only dare to wish for.

In her hand, the name of the music, and his fondest wish: _I Know I Dream._


	11. Chapter 11

****Chapter 11: They needed this (rated T); poverty****

* * *

 **Please note** **: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...**

 ** **Manhattan, late December, 2014****

Late afternoon, and now the wind was dying down, and the fitful cold gusts were tamed to a gentler breeze. So gentle that it didn't rattle the metal table any longer on the balcony outside her flat. And inside, all was dark and warm and quiet in the living room. Nothing stirred. Nothing disturbed the quiet, save the faint sound of breathing from the other room.

She was dreaming of him. And then, she'd awakened and found him there in her bed. Reaching for her.

His hands running over her skin, and the feel of her back arching underneath them. Strong. His strong hands, let loose now, holding back no longer. She was patient no longer herself, abandoning herself to the heat and the sound and the feel of this man.

Like a river – their feelings like a river running over them, drowning them in the sweetness of their touch – lips, hands, skin; everywhere. And he had responded, pressing in on her, sliding his hands around to her back, drawing her over him, slowly, with every ounce of his control. That sound in his throat, sighing. And her, answering, sighing too. They needed this.

Both of them – indistinguishable now, melting together in their own heat. Exquisite heat. Rising like a surging tide, crashing and tumbling, drawn out like waves running up the grateful beach. And then falling back, slowly, withdrawing toward the sea, the endless sea. Leaving them emptied. Washed out. Quenched. Quenched in the river of feeling running over them. To rest. Their bodies twitching softly, like little earthly aftershocks, resting in each other's arms.

In a little while, she'd found him kissing her, his lips soft now, gentle on her face and neck. The heat had given way to something else now, and she could feel how the strength in him had been transformed.

He found he couldn't help himself, drawn to her, her skin so warm against his lips, so soft, so fragrant, calling him to her.

And soon, she was kissing him, too; on his hair, then his brow, marching softly to his mouth. Whispering to him softly near his ear. Making him smile.

Her arms circled him. And she was stretched out long and lean on his left side, careful not to press against his right knee.

She felt his long fingers on her skin, dragging so softly over her neck, her face, her chest; then gently tipping her head so he could reach her throat with his lips. Sighing. The two of them sighing in the dim light, their breathing the only sound disturbing the quiet of the afternoon.

They needed this.

 ** **Rome, Italy, late December, 2014****

When the last of the gifts were unloaded from the vans, Harold watched as the children carried them in. Through the window just across the street from where he stood he could watch them. He was careful that Grace wouldn't see him there.

More children had spilled from their building - once word spread that something wonderful, and unexpected, had happened on their street. Their eyes danced, and they were rushing back and forth from street to inner courtyard, then back again. Arms full of presents. They'd never seen anything like this.

And Grace. Her eyes full of smiles, pleasure, watching them. This was unexpected, a sudden splash of color and whimsy in their gray existence. Grace's paintbox could stretch just so far. To heal such deep wounds, war wounds, with art alone. It would take more.

Wonder and imagination needed fuel to flourish. This surprise and these gifts would be remembered for a lifetime; and they just might be the fuel needed - to lift them from a poverty of ideas and hope.

She wondered about this unnamed benefactor. Who could this be, and how could she find him, or her.

For weeks now, she had had a sense of eyes on her, benevolent, but always watching. She couldn't shake the feeling. As though someone were watching over her and her children from the shadows - keeping them always in view.

Was this more of the same? These gifts? Was there someone in the shadows watching? A tiny voice inside wanted it to be yes, and it gave her this small sense of peace and safety to think of it this way. Her own private protector. Someone who would watch over her. It was like an echo from the past. A memory just out of reach. But tantalizing.

From his window, he could see the excitement, and the glee in the children's eyes – heart-warming. So nourishing for Harold. Why hadn't he done this sooner?

His eyes filled again, and threatened to spill over. And his heart. Heavy suddenly. He knew why.

So tied up with the daily pull of victims and perpetrators, crimes planned and thwarted.

This calling of his, once begun, was impossible to leave undone.

Once Harold knew, really knew, what went on - how could he walk away? The Machine, and his Team – all that stood between victims and those who would do them harm. Who could save them if not for his Team? Which of them would just walk away from this?

Someone would die if they did. Someone would die. Knowing what he knew, it was impossible for him to leave - impossible to have this other life.

So much to give up, though. He felt it now. Seeing her again. Seeing her again from this window. He heard himself saying her name out loud, reaching to the glass, touching her through it, as though she were there, an arm's length away.

So near, too far.

If only he could remind her - of their days together, of their past. If only she could smile again, and not shrink from his face. Somehow he would find a way. Plant a seed, watch it grow. There was time. He could help her remember him. The real him - not the monster in her mind. He could find a way. There was time.

He started to close his eyes, to remember her smile. But behind him on the stairs - something wrong.

That sound. Softly on the stairs.

Watching through the window, distracted by these thoughts - he'd almost missed it.

The sound he had made coming up here. That same sound.

On the stairs. A loose tread.

Harold turned from the window, toward the sound.


	12. Chapter 12

****Part 2****

* * *

 ** **Chapter 12: Four-eyes****

* * *

 ** **Rome, Italy, late December, 2014****

Harold backed up, backed away from the stairs. He looked quickly around him for a place to conceal himself. Dusty old tables, chairs, a short wooden bar with a few bar stools pulled up – these were all he could see in the room. He backed his way to the bar, facing the stairs as he walked – but his footsteps left marks in the dust. No use hiding. His footsteps would lead them right to him.

Harold faced the stairs, and straightened his spine, taking in a last quick breath – they were coming.

Their guns appeared first, short-barreled, black metal guns. In a flash, less than a second, Harold recognized rifles, with scopes and long clips full of bullets. Guns were not his forte. He couldn't tell one from another. Didn't matter – there were three coming at him.

He could hear his heartbeat - loud and pounding in his head. And a sudden pressure, like swelling in his chest and neck.

Then a whispered voice.

"Confirm...Four-eyes," the lead one whispered, leaning his mouth down to a box near his shoulder. They fanned out in the room, guns pointing past Harold now, into the corners. He could barely pull his eyes away from the black metal barrels. Men in light-colored camouflage, and high-topped desert boots and helmets with dark glasses - these men looked like the ones Mr. Reese had recruited, the ones left behind to look after Grace.

Harold exhaled. Perhaps this could end well, after all.

As he started to address them, the lead soldier raised a hand in the air, cautioning Harold to stay silent. He stood there, watching them fan out, searching – behind the bar, behind heavy drapes hanging at the windows. Dust from the floor and the drapes swirled up around them, dancing in the currents, sparkling in the streamers of sunlight slanting in. So quiet here, just the soft sound of boots on the floor.

Then Harold noticed they'd surrounded a door he hadn't seen – a cupboard at the back of the room. They looked back over their shoulders, past Harold, to the stairs.

A fourth man appeared, moving directly to Harold, motioning toward the stairs with two gloved fingers. He covered their advance with his rifle, swinging his gaze side-to-side, Harold limping after. He could see the soldier looking back toward his leg. Harold waved him off. No need to throw an arm over his shoulder, like a human crutch. Harold could make it on his own.

They descended the stairs, avoiding the creaking from that one loose tread. The soldier watched him negotiate the steps. Behind them, the others had pulled open the cupboard door - no one inside. They could hear footsteps as the men finished their search and then the sound of them heading back toward the stairs behind them.

At the bottom, the soldier swung around the banister, guiding Harold to the back of the cantina. Away from the street side, away from the building where Grace and the children lived. Harold took a quick glance as he rounded the banister, but Grace and the children were gone, safely inside.

When Harold turned again, he could see another soldier up ahead dressed in camo like the others, standing at the rear door with his rifle. He was looking out at the narrow alleyway in back. The soldiers motioned for Harold to stop, just short of the door. The soldier near the door leaned out, then back in for a moment, then forward again, checking both ways, then stepped out onto the cobblestones. A black van sat idling just outside, and the soldier slid the van door open on its track. He turned back to motion to Harold.

Footsteps from the three soldiers upstairs were just rounding the banister at the bottom. Harold was readying himself for the few quick steps to the van.

And that's when the first shot rang out. The soldier at the door flinched even before the sound came, and Harold heard a snap. Blood sprayed from the soldier's right arm. And Harold heard him cry out, hunched forward with his arm pulled in against him. More shots – and then people were running up behind him as the other men closed in around him.

The soldier at the door lifted his weapon, awkwardly, to return fire at the back door. Blood dripped from the wound on his arm. The others pushed Harold back behind a heavy carved column, then they ducked down, and turned away to cover every direction in a circle around him.

More shots, and the first soldier was saying something into the box on his shoulder. Outside, moments later, they could hear engine noise approaching, and then a stream of shots fired down the alleyway. The sound was deafening, a firefight in the alleyway. Harold covered his ears with his hands. His heart was pounding from the noise. And then just when Harold thought his heart would burst, the shooting stopped. Silence suddenly.

He saw the men nodding to one another, craning to listen.

And after a long pause, one more single shot made Harold jump. Then nothing.

The soldier at the door held his hand up to his ear, as though pressing something closer to the side of his head; and then he turned toward the others and signaled with his hand. They waited for him to lean out, check left and right again. And then engine noise came closer outside, and he waved to the others driving up behind the black van. The soldiers surrounded Harold and walked him out to the van, helping him inside, then climbed in behind him. A driver Harold hadn't seen before gunned the motor, rolling forward, with the second van bringing up the rear.

Inside, Harold watched the wounded man rolling up his sleeve, and one of the others pressing on the wound with a scarf he'd pulled from his neck. Another soldier dragged a battered metal first aid kit over on the floor. The wounded man had leaned back, steadying himself against the wall of the van. His face was grimacing in pain now, and he was shivering, square white teeth showing in the near-darkness inside.

Harold turned to the driver. "This man needs medical attention. Take us to the nearest hospital," he said, and the driver looked behind him in the rear view mirror.

"No, Sir, we take care of our own here." Harold looked around him at the faces of these men. So calm, so focused. Like they did this every day. He could see them going about the task at hand, inspecting the bloody wound on their fellow soldier's forearm; layering heavy pads down on two sides, wrapping white gauze around the arm in layer after overlapping layer. Harold heard one of them say something about _a through-and-through_ and he guessed that the snapping sound he'd heard at the door back there was the bullet passing right through the soldier's arm. He could smell the faint smell of blood, and it made him remember that same smell, for far too many times already - with his own Team. His eyes softened.

"Thank you," he said quietly after a moment. "Thank you for what you are doing here to protect – our people," he said. Harold looked around at their faces. They were staring at him, like they didn't know what to say to that, and then one of them broke the silence, the uncomfortable silence, and got up to move to Harold's side.

"Saw you limping back there, Sir. Are you wounded?" He placed his hand on Harold's bad leg.

Harold shook his head, no.

"An old injury. Nothing to do," he said softly, and he saw the others nod and turn back to their buddy. One of them was putting a makeshift sling over the wounded man's head, and lifting the injured arm into the end.

Harold could hear the sound of the van behind them as it changed directions, and he craned to see where it was headed.

"They're doubling back now, to keep an eye on things back there, and clean up the site," the soldier was saying at Harold's side. He stood up to get a better view, but had to bend forward inside the low space. At the back, he knelt down to keep watch out the small windows at the rear. Everyone was quiet now, and the driver moved them through the empty streets.

Harold looked over again at the wounded man. He could see the bloody bullet-hole in his sleeve, where it was pushed up out of the way at his elbow. He saw the streaks of blood where it had run down his arm and hand, just visible at the edge of the sling. The soldier was leaning back against the wall, eyes closed and his head bobbing side to side with the motion of the van on the cobblestone street. They had given him something for pain, and now he wasn't grimacing any more, even when the van jostled his arm.

Harold could hear the sound of the tires on the road, and the sound of the engine, throaty, like the kind of engine in a much bigger truck. He bet that this van was something special, modified, not like a van off the showroom floor.

Mr. Reese had chosen well with these men. They were soldiers he had served with, in Afghanistan, years before. He'd called them and recruited them for this new mission - in the mean streets of Rome, where the refugees huddled, and where Grace had gone to work teaching art to their children.

Harold thought about the faces, the children's eyes. That hollow, empty look in their young eyes, from the memories of barrel bombs, and gunfire, starvation and suffering while they'd waited to get out. And these were the lucky ones. The ones who'd made it here, floating for days on overcrowded boats, floating toward safety. So many were lost at sea, though. Drowned, washed up on the beaches like fish in foul water. How long could this go on? How many would have to die to make the world take notice?

This little thing that he had done, the gifts for the children – nowhere near enough. If he repeated it a hundred times, a thousand times, still not enough. So many were here. And elsewhere. Trapped. Held in limbo; neither here, nor there where they were headed.

No wonder the hollow, empty eyes. They were trapped. And for a little while today, Harold had known exactly how they felt.


	13. Chapter 13

****Chapter 13: "I have to go."****

* * *

 ** **Manhattan, late December, 2014****

"I have to get up," she said, leaning back to put the clock on the table near her bed. She started to roll over to get up, but she felt his hand reach out and hold her back from leaving. It made her smile. Then he reached around and slid her back across the sheets, back to him. She giggled as he wrapped her in his arms, keeping her from leaving.

"Hey, now, Bear needs to go out – and I have to go take a shower," she said, turning over to face him. Reese lifted up a curly lock of hair hanging down and twirled it between his fingers. Even in this dim light he could see the blue blue of her eyes, the warm brown of her skin, and her soft smile. So quiet here. So peaceful right now. In this dim light, with her there next to him, it felt like this could go on forever. If no one broke the spell, If he didn't think about it, and just let it be - it could last just like this. He wanted to tell her, to say how she looked to him just now, but something made him hold back. He didn't say it.

Instead, he said to her, "I'll take Bear out this time - you can get your shower."

She smiled up at him. Those blue blue eyes. Soft, and full of feeling.

"That would be lovely," in her British accent.

She reached up with both hands and kissed his face. "This has been wonderful, today. I haven't spent a whole day in bed like this for ages," she whispered.

She watched his eyes, and for a moment Reese looked like he was going to agree. But then, he seemed to stop himself. Gelila nodded a little to herself. Something had just clicked one step too far, and she could feel a certain change come over him, like a tension that hadn't been there the moment before.

But she knew what she needed to do to get it back. In her mock-serious voice:

"Come on, get up now! Bear is waiting, poor dog. And it's time for us to get back to work. Can't lay around all day." And with that, she pulled the covers off of Reese.

He groaned and rolled himself over. Then, gingerly, he lifted his legs over the side of the bed, testing his weight first on the bad knee - to see how it felt today.

"Not bad – I think that stuff is working," he said, pushing himself to standing, and then weighting the right knee, gingerly again.

"Good. I'll leave some arnica for you while I'm away," she said. Reese heard her say it, and tried to think if she'd said something before, but he didn't ask her just yet. And she'd rolled the other way, up onto her feet on the far side of the bed. She was sliding a silky robe over her shoulders, and heading for the door.

Bear was there, standing on the other side when she opened it, and he smiled with his muzzle when he saw her. Then after she'd passed by him with a little rub on his head, Bear walked inside the bedroom to find Reese. He'd limped to a chair next to the bed where he'd seen his clothes neatly folded. Gelila must have done it when she'd gone with Bear out for his morning walk.

Last night, Reese remembered he was half-asleep on her couch, waiting for a cup of coffee, when she'd leaned into him. She'd pressed against his chest where the burns and bruising were. He'd flinched with the pain, and she'd insisted on seeing what was there, under his shirt. And once she'd seen those, she went looking for all the other places she could put her arnica cream and the gel from that plant in her living room.

She'd started undressing him there on the couch. One thing had led to another. And their clothes were down in a trail here to her bed. Reese smiled to himself, thinking of her hands on him last night, smoothing the white cream and the cool gel over the burns and bruising. She'd held him against her, until he fell asleep in her arms. He remembered her whispering to him to sleep - that he was safe there, in her arms.

Reese lifted the stack of his folded clothes, and brought it back to the edge of the bed. He sat down to take the weight off his right knee. It seemed like he could bend it a little better today, and the bruising looked a little lighter in color than yesterday, but it still hurt like a bad toothache at the joint. Reese felt around the knee with his finger pads, and found where the joint was the most painful. That's where they'd hit him the hardest with the stick, but it wasn't even where the bruising was the darkest any more. The bruising had drifted down to his calf, but when he pressed there, it wasn't sore there at all. Just purple bruising working its way down the calf toward his foot. In a week or two, the purple would turn to green and then yellow, until it faded away. The pain on the joint, though, near the knee would take weeks to go away. He'd heard the bone crack on that hit, when the Zheng had beaten Shaw and him with wooden sticks – down in the basement, in Queens.

Reese pulled on his tee shirt, then his white shirt. Then he stood up while he put on the rest. Then he tucked the white shirt into his slacks, and tightened his belt. Bear had come over – sitting down in front of him on the rug – cocking his head to one side. He flicked his ears forward and his eyes were bright, alert for any command. Reese smiled. Bear was a great dog. Better than most humans he'd run across in his life.

Bear needed little, and would give everything. Hard to imagine a better friend.

Looking over to him, he said softly, " _staan_ ," and Bear stood up. Reese turned away toward the bedroom door. Then he said " _rechts,_ " and Bear stepped to Reese's right side and waited.

The two walked through the darkened apartment to the front door. Reese heard the shower running in the bathroom down the hall. And on her coffee table by the couch, Reese saw Gelila's key ring lying there, a handful of keys on it. He decided to leave it there. He'd lock the door when they left, then Gelila could buzz them in when they were back from their walk. Reese was thinking of a good spot to stop on the way - for coffee and some hot food to surprise her.

In his coat he found Bear's leash in a pocket. Gelila must have put it there this morning. She'd had it at the Vet office for the last few days with Bear. He clipped the leash on Bear's collar and the two of them went out into the hallway, latching the door after them.

They took the elevator down three flights, to save some wear-and-tear on Reese's knee. Outside, the air was cold, but still, and Reese could see Bear's breath in the cold air as he walked alongside.

The cold air should have helped to clear his head, but Reese could feel a dull headache coming on. Caffeine withdrawal headache. He just needed a cup of coffee, and the headache would go away, so he made his way to the nearest spot for coffee, a donut shop at the end of the street near the corner.

Bear had to wait outside while Reese went in, but it was quick, and he came out with something to share with Bear – some scrambled eggs and sausage inside a wrap. Reese unwound it a little and pulled out some egg and sausage. He handed it to Bear, and watched him gulp it down and look for more. Reese took a bite first, then unwound it again and handed Bear the next portion, metering it out between the two of them until the sandwich was gone.

"That's all, boy," he said, and opened the top of his coffee. The two of them went off down the street toward the park, Reese sipping as they walked. By the time they got there, his headache was nearly gone, and he was feeling good, really good. A little hungry, but his body felt the best it had felt in a long time.

He smiled to himself, thinking of Gelila, as he let Bear off the leash to roam. And then he remembered something from a dream – the one where he was walking on the beach, with Joss. He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering her face in his dream.

She'd looked up at him, after she said he'd chosen well with Gelila.

He remembered her words. "You don't have to do all this alone, John."

Reese stopped for a moment on the park path. He put his hand over his heart and leaned forward. A sudden pain there, like a thump inside his heart. And more tumbled out in his head.

"What I saw was two people – two people who need each other," she'd said. And then the part again about not having to do all this alone. It was hard to hear it. He'd never thought there would be anyone else, after Joss. He took a deep breath and let it out through pursed lips, slowly, gathering himself.

He straightened up, pulling his coat in a little closer, against the cold evening air - and then he could hear his phone going off in his pocket. Overseas number.

Italy?

He answered, and heard the sound of one of his guys at the other end. In Italy.

"Lose something?" he said. Reese's eyes furrowed. He didn't answer.

"We've got your friend here – Four-eyes."

"Tell me," Reese said, his throat tightening to his soft, raspy voice. He called Bear back, turned around, and headed back for the apartment while he listened.

"I've been trying to call you, Buddy – for the last week. We're taking hits here, from the bad guys you were telling us about. They're like cockroaches, coming out of the woodwork over here. Just wanted you to know so you could keep watch for the same, over there." Reese was silent for a moment.

"Yeah, we took some flak here, too. Crushed my phone – should have called with the backup number."

"Four-eyes told us what happened. You've been busy, my friend. Happy you're still here to talk about it."

They talked on the phone all the way back to Gelila's apartment. Reese buzzed her number when he got there, and then went up in the elevator to her floor. She met him at the door, but saw his face as he walked down the hall, signing off on his call.

"I know that look," she said as he closed the door behind him. He nodded, and realized he hadn't brought back food for them.

"Do you at least have time to eat something? I made eggs and cornbread. Strange combination, but that's all I had." She saw him hesitate and look down at his watch.

"I have to go."

She frowned. And then she stepped forward with her right foot, reaching out, pointing at him with her right index finger.

"One piece," she said, sternly. He shook his head, questioning.

"I want you to come back in one piece this time. You're a lot of work, for one person." And then she smiled, and crossed over to him, gathering him close to her. She kissed him and he pulled her in even closer, holding her, warm against his body.

The drone of the jet engine sounded in his ears, and he adjusted his long frame on the seat, again. Just a few more hours, and they'd be there, in Rome. Shaw was sleeping in the seat next to him. He hadn't slept much himself, but he kept wake-dreaming of the same thing, over and over. About going to pick up Bear, and then the long night and day they'd spent together in her apartment. It felt like a dream, but it was real.

He looked over at Shaw. Yes, there was the cut on her bottom lip. He'd seen it there when he'd gone back to the safe house to pack. And, in the hallway, when he was passing Root on his way to his room, a bruise on her left cheek, her angry eyes.

Shaw got up as soon as he'd arrived at the safe house. She'd packed already, insisting on going with him to Italy. While he showered and packed, she'd made food for the three of them, but Root took one look at Shaw's luggage, and left.

Reese frowned. Dissension on the team was never a good thing. Maybe things would get better with a little space.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: for Reese instead; Greer in the middle;**

* * *

 **Airspace over the Atlantic, late December, 2014**

Little by little Shaw was aware of the sounds around her: the low vibration of the jet engines, someone talking to one of the flight attendants in the back, a wrapper torn open and the crinkle of the cellophane. She opened her eyes slowly and looked around her. The jet was full tonight, every seat taken by passengers flying for the holidays. It was night now and the aisles were empty, bathed in the glow of soft blue light.

Next to her, Reese was sitting up in his seat, eyes half-closed, and she could hear his breathing – faster, deeper than normal, as though he were caught up in the middle of something, dreaming of something – or someone. The sound of his breathing had wakened her.

She'd seen Reese disturbed like this – before, when things were bad, after Carter.

Shaw remembered it too well; the curse of having a memory like hers - back when they weren't even sure he'd survive the night – that first night, when they'd found him barely standing, pointing a gun at the man who'd ordered the hit. Reese was so close to death that night - he'd collapsed just after they'd found him, with the gun in his hand and his target still alive. And Shaw remembered Harold down next to him, kneeling on the floor at his ear, imploring Reese to stop.

But his arm came up with the gun in his hand. They could see the struggle in his face, to hold it steady, to stay alert: this one last thing, must do this one last thing, for Carter. Shaw remembered the clicks, as pull after pull, the click from no bullets chambering - none left in his gun to fire.

The gun wobbled in his hand and dropped down to his side. Useless. It was over. Reese was done.

They'd rushed him to Harold's library office, where the desk and computers were pushed to the hall - swapped for a hospital bed and trauma room. If they'd had any hope of saving Reese they'd need it - one just like the one where Shaw had trained.

When Reese went missing, shot in the same ambush with Carter, there was no time to waste. They could save him, but only if they found him in time. He'd gone dark, chasing the men who'd shot Carter. One step behind, they could just catch a glimpse on surveillance. Single minded, pushing himself to find them, he was bleeding to death in pursuit. Shaw readied a room. If she could find Reese in time, they'd have a chance to save him.

And when the room was ready, she'd gone looking, too, looking for the hit man just like Reese - find him, find Reese. This was brute force, the kind she'd have to keep from Harold. She needed answers, and needed them fast. No time for finesse, no time for mercy. Time was running out.

In the end, it had taken every skill of a surgeon-friend of Harold's to save him. So close, he'd been so close to death. They could have lost him a couple of times that first night, his pressure dropping and his heartbeat erratic - but he just kept coming back. Not because he'd wanted to. It was almost as though something was pushing him back from the other side each time he'd let go.

That first night was the rockiest, up and down in a tug of war between this world and the next. But then, after that, Reese steadied. By the next night he'd started to show signs that he might make it. Shaw took over from the surgeon then and stayed at Reese's side for days.

So anxious to lighten his sedation. Shaw hadn't let on to the others. She needed to know if his brain was still working. After losing that much blood and crashing over and over that first night, it was possible his body had survived, but his brain hadn't. She'd begun titrating the dose down as fast as she'd dared.

That was a mistake.

When Reese started to wake, she was sitting next to him in her chair in the early morning. She remembered his body jerking a few times, and the sound of it woke her. She reached out with her hand to settle him. But he bolted upright in the bed, and reached around to his IV lines in one motion, grabbing them up and ripping them out with one hand. She could see it in his eyes. He didn't know where he was, or what was happening. He only knew he had to get away.

Reese went wild, thrashing, striking out at anything around him, throwing them off him when they tried to stop him. On his chest and side, fresh blood started bleeding through the dressings in the struggle. He was too dangerous to leave him awake like this. So she'd knocked him out again, stabbing him with a syringe in his shoulder, enough drug to bring down a racehorse. And then she'd kept him under like that, for days, until she could try again.

At least she had her answer. He was in there. Vile, cursing all of them, out of his mind with grief. But he was in there. She was relieved.

Shaw gave him the one mercy she could, keeping him under for a few days with the meds – to give him some small measure of peace in his grief.

Fever had come next, and Shaw wasn't surprised. Before they'd found him, he'd tried to stop the bleeding himself with whatever he could find – grimy dish towels stolen from the back of a Chinese takeout, taped over his wounds with strips of duct tape. Reese hadn't cared. He'd just wanted to live long enough to find his target. After that, he'd find a place to rest - and whatever happened, happened.

The surgeon had had some choice words when he was undoing the mess. He'd complained to Shaw, shaking his head, cursing as he cut away the duct tape and found the filthy towels underneath.

The fever raged all day and through the night, Reese drenched in sweat, shivering and moaning until, finally his fever broke. An hour passed with no fever, then two, and three. Just a small rise that night, but the worst was over. Shaw would sit at his side, watching him then, the slow rise and fall of his chest with his breathing, and the quiet tracing of his heartbeat on the monitor next to his bed. He looked peaceful at last. And gradually, over days this time, she'd lightened him up until he was awake again.

He was different this time. Sullen. Angry. Mute. He didn't want to talk. He would barely eat. His world had collapsed out from under him and Reese had lost his way.

Shaw had no idea how he got well enough to stand, but he seemed to will himself to do it. He wanted out, and the only way to do it was to stand.

Those were the days when she'd first noticed him breathing like this, his face twisted, his body jerking each time he tried to sleep, as though he were re-living the ambush over and over.

Painful progress. And then, as soon as he could stand and walk, he vanished.

Shaw frowned. That had been one hellish time. For all of them. It seemed so long ago, but just a year and a half had passed. So much had happened in that short time. She'd watched him – measuring him against the man she knew before. He was too quiet. Brooding. Reese was not the same man when he'd come back to them.

When she thought about it, it was different for Reese than the rest of them. He'd had something special, some kind of deeper connection with Carter – and when that connection was broken, the fire had gone out of him. He was lost, alone in an exile of his own making.

In the glow of the blue light Shaw watched his face. She wondered if he was thinking of Carter again. He'd seemed different lately, like something was on his mind. Reese hadn't come back that night, after he'd left the safehouse to go get Bear. She'd thought it was odd that he'd left so late that night.

He was gone all night and most of the next day. And then, when he did come back, he was alone – Bear was nowhere to be seen. Something was up, she thought, something that he wasn't talking about.

She couldn't quite get it yet, but Reese seemed different somehow.

Maybe it was his eyes, she thought. Yes, that was it.

There was a look in his eyes that she hadn't seen for a long time.

Shaw had always had trouble reading people that way.

How was she supposed to know what their eyes were saying? Everyone else seemed to know how to tell, but not her. So often, she'd tried to read people's eyes – and usually she guessed wrong. Her condition. It was part of her condition. She just couldn't guess what people were thinking. Not by reading their eyes, anyway, or their faces.

And because she couldn't read them well, she'd never learned to react the way they'd expected. It was hard for her to do. She had to stop everything else she was doing – concentrate completely on that one thing. It was exhausting to do it. And way too much trouble.

But people seemed to need this from her, expect this, this one thing that she couldn't seem to do. Sometimes, it made her want to shoot something, or wreck something, from the frustration of it. So, she'd discovered early in her life that it was better if she didn't stay around people. Then she wouldn't have to try to figure them out. It was safer for everybody.

Shaw leaned back in her seat and let her mind drift as she watched Reese's face. They'd been through some tough times together lately – the two of them run off the road together in their SUV, dragged out, taken by the Zheng to Queens. And when the two of them woke up, soaked with buckets of cold water thrown on them, they didn't know where they were. But soon, it was clear.

She was stretched out on a long table, face down, tied by her hands and feet to the table. And she remembered turning her head, seeing Reese hanging by his wrists from ropes in the ceiling.

Seeing him like that – something went off inside her; that same thing that had made her sit by his bedside for days after Carter. It made her have that sound in her voice – like a threat, like a challenge to the Zheng. She hadn't cared at that moment what would happen to her. She would take it. And they'd responded to her taunt in just the way she'd expected, punishing her, slapping across her skin with a wooden stick. Here was something she could understand. Combat.

But instead of stopping her, it only made things worse. The stinging slap incensed her, steeled her, and more words poured out in another taunt. Followed by another slap across her bare legs with the stick, harder this time.

If the Zheng thought this would break her, they were wrong. She was prepared to do battle with them, make them come for her. But in the end, they went for Reese instead.

When she looked back at him in his seat, he was awake, watching her.

"We're over France now," she said. He sat up a little higher, looking around him. And then he straightened his seat a little more. He twisted the top off a small bottle of water, offered her a sip, and then downed the rest.

"We'll be there by noon, and then we can check on Finch. I talked to one of my men yesterday. They found Finch wandering around in a building across the street from Grace. He was alone. But if they hadn't followed him in, Greer's people would have grabbed him."

"What was he doing there?" she asked.

"Don't know. He didn't say," he said. She was silent for a little while. And then:

"How's Bear?" She didn't look at Reese. She wanted to concentrate on his voice, instead. She knew his voice – how it sounded when he was serious, when he was joking, when he was mad, and when he was lying.

He hesitated for just a second, and his shoulder twitched.

"I left him at the Vet," he said. She nodded, like it was normal conversation, and sat back in her seat.

 **Dakar, Senegal, late December, 2014**

A taxi had come for them once they'd cleared customs, with documents brought on-board by a man from the U.S. Embassy. He had brought their papers, passports, a thick envelope full of cash and three suitcases. The suitcases he'd left in his car, but the rest he hand-delivered to Greer on board the _Argos._

The taxi wound through the streets, away from the docks, toward the high-rises gleaming in the sun. The three of them were silent on the trip, and then they exited slowly when the cab pulled in front of their hotel. Inside, fans whirled overhead in the high ceilings, moving the air in the bright white lobby. Their bags were whisked up to their rooms, and Greer picked up his mail from the desk. Soon, they were shown to their rooms, Greer in the middle, with one of the women on either side.


	15. Chapter 15

****Chapter 15: Conflicted?; designated driver; no more****

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 **Please note** **: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...**

 ** **Dakar, Senegal, late December, 2014****

Later in the day, after they'd had some time to relax in their rooms – have some lunch, read a newspaper, catch a nap, the three of them reconvened in Greer's room for tea.

Kara had ordered the local coffee instead, _caf_ _é_ _Touba._ At first, she hadn't liked the drink, strong dark-roasted coffee with cloves, Guinea pepper and sugar. But then, she couldn't stop drinking it. It reminded her of Turkish coffee, bitter, but with the added spice and sweetening. On the street, vendors poured the drink from one cup to another, over and over, moving their hands further away as they poured, frothing the drink before it was served. It was everywhere in Dakar, dark and addicting.

Her colleagues were drinking tea from bone china cups. Not Kara's style.

They pulled three chairs together, facing one another in a circle around a coffee table. Greer brought the envelope out, the one with their papers inside, from the U.S. Embassy. He pulled out three folders, neatly arranged with names on the tabs.

"Study these - our new identities until we return to New York," he said, glancing at the name on the first folder.

"Camille Gibault," he said, reaching across the coffee table to Martine. She nodded and took the folder from him, dropping it down onto her lap. Inside the cover was her picture, and on the other side, typewritten, was her bio in two pages. After that, a passport, credit cards, employment records, apartment lease, and other documents that tracked with her bio. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to create this new identity.

While she read and re-read her bio, Greer handed the second folder to Kara.

"Ulla Hansen," Greer said, reaching over the table to Kara. She noticed Greer wince with the motion. She looked him over, carefully. At his age, his field days should have ended long ago. But, Greer was not the type to retire quietly to the English countryside. Greer was a warrior, and would undoubtedly die with his gun in his hand, she thought. As it should be. There were not many left like him, not many who could earn her loyalty like this.

It was more than the fact that his people had rescued her, saved her life back in China. If he succeeded, and his machine changed the world, there would be a place for her. Greer would need people around him he could trust, and everything she'd done for him since China, she'd done to earn it. Samaritan would allow few humans in the inner circle – and Kara Stanton was going to be one of them.

Blood would need to be spilled to change the world, and as it happened, she was very, very good at that. She smiled to herself as she thought of it.

No one would stand in their way – not John Reese, and least of all, not Harold Finch. Samaritan would rise, and the rest would fall, by her hand. John Reese had escaped her in China but so, too, had she escaped – call it a draw, then. And in Manhattan, both of them were wounded, both escaped. Another draw.

But not this time. This time, she would put him down. She'd thought of a special treat first, before she retired him. She would take his little girlfriend, Shaw, apart – in front of him – a fight she'd enjoy with this worthy adversary. And then Harold Finch would be next. Once he'd surrendered his Machine to Greer, he would crumple like paper in her hands. Poor big-hearted John. It would break him to see it. She could never understand why he'd volunteered for black ops. He'd had the skill, yes, but not the attitude. She could feel it about him. He never got used to it. He was never at ease with what they did.

Conflicted? That doesn't work in black ops. It only makes you weak.

His lackey Fusco would never even see her coming. She'd hand him off to Martine, to even the score for the bullet she took in Manhattan.

And the crazy one called Root - she might just be convinced to join them – once she realized they had the best tech around. With the Machine dead, Samaritan was the only game left, and Root could choose to join them and play, or die.

Kara stopped and looked up to the others.

It was time to do this, to get on with it, she thought to herself. Greer was a patient man. He saw the big picture. But, she was not so patient. They were free of Manhattan, free of the Machine's eyes. Now was the time to act, put their plan in motion before they returned to New York and the Machine's meddling.

"Alright, let's get started," Greer said. "These new identities will allow us to travel freely, with no one tracking our movements – _except for our government._ We must assume that our friends at the NSA will see us every time we use one of these," he said, holding up his passport, and credit cards. Greer saw the two women nodding, following his logic.

"With Samaritan so close to going online full time for them, the NSA will want to know where we go, what we do, who we contact. They'll be tracking us. And we have to get Samaritan back before they know we were attacked. We _must_ get Samaritan back online, whatever it takes," he said, his eyes cold, icy blue.

"I'll need to meet with some associates. We'll be going into Nigeria. And _n_ _o one_ must know." Greer stopped and looked at each woman, emphasizing his last statement. He could see them considering the implications.

"Kara, you will come along with me. Martine, you'll stay, and get the next steps ready." He watched each one nod as he set his instructions.

"We'll need a way in that won't be tracked," he said, looking for ideas. Kara spoke up.

"Plane is the only way. It's too far to drive in this part of the world – fifteen hundred miles, at least. But, like Steele said, it's not the best time to be in West Africa. Ebola," Kara said. Then, looking at the two of them, "I'll check into it. We'll find a way."

 **Rome, Italy, late December, 2014**

It was bright sun as Reese and Shaw de-planed in Rome, mild for December, in the low 50's. The black van was waiting for them, and Shaw slid into the back seat, next to one of Reese's soldier-friends. Reese limped around to the passenger side, in front, and hoisted himself in.

"You two look like crap," his buddy said, grinning, and then leaned over to clasp hands and bump shoulders with Reese in the van's tight quarters. Reese grinned back and reached, left-handed, to bump fists with the soldier next to Shaw.

"Nothing a little coffee and food won't fix," Reese said, as they drove off into the traffic cycling through the airport loop.

They talked all the way back, headed for a district in the southeast of Rome where their headquarters were located, near Grace's school. On the way, they stopped for sandwiches and some coffee for Shaw and Reese, but kept going.

"Four-eyes is waiting for you. He's been upgrading our communications while he's been here. Some kinda engineer, or something?" the driver asked Reese.

"Or something," he said, sipping coffee. "How's he doing?"

"He's good. I think he's a little shaken up. He thought he could just show up, drop in, and get out before anyone'd notice. But, it's not like that now. The place is crawling with bad guys. They're keeping watch, and they're just waiting for the time we fall asleep on the job. They think they're gonna get past us." Reese could see the easy way he had of speaking.

He remembered how they'd spent many a day and night, sweating into their clothes in the desert heat, talking like this, back in Afghanistan. Brody was from Texas, Reese recalled, a mixture of that quiet Texas patriotism and a big dose of hardheadedness. Solid. Likable. Uncomplicated. His father had served, his grandfather, and his younger brother, too, all military. They came from one of those small towns in West Texas, where every house flew the flag proudly, along with the Star of Texas. And he was right. No one was going to get past him and his men. That's why they were here. Grace's safety depended on it.

"So, what was he doing here?" Reese asked.

"Some kinda Christmas thing for the school, he says. Maybe you can get more outa him. He's pretty tight about it."

They swung around a wide loop and entered what looked like an old campus, with lines of multi-story buildings, dorms perhaps, when the place was functioning. Now, the buildings had been taken over by refugees swarming out through border countries along the Mediterranean. They were here from Syria, West Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria. And now, they were packed in like fish in cans. And more coming all the time.

When Grace had heard of this place, she'd decided to leave the comfort of her former art school, close to the Vatican. Now she was here teaching and living nearby the refugee towers.

She had set up another school, where some of the children even lived with her, away from the desperate conditions of the towers. She was their teacher, and like a mother, too, to so many of them. She'd worked with the local hospital and now they were sending a doctor each week to care for the people in the towers. Not enough, but at least it was something. It was like living at the edge of a powder keg here, next to the refugee towers. At any moment, it could destabilize and blow up in her face.

It was never intended to go this far. Harold had arranged a comfy teaching job in an art school in Rome. He'd wanted to give Grace a place to go after she thought he'd been killed in the ferry boat bombing. He'd thought it would be safe there, a steady job where she could surround herself with the art she loved, the architecture of the Old City, the quiet life she'd always lived back in New York. And, of course, where Greer would never find her. But it hadn't worked that way. Greer _had_ found her, taken her, wrecked her life in so many ways.

Kept in a cellar for months, handcuffed, blindfolded, sleep-deprived. She was drugged, tortured, and then left blank by Greer's techniques. Harold was the enemy now. So thorough was this re-programming of Grace, that she could no longer bear to see Harold's face.

Grace had no memory left of the life they'd shared, before Italy. So she couldn't stay there in New York. Her life was back in Italy, with her refugee children.

She'd flown out of New York, alone, and returned to her school in Rome. Back to her teaching, back to the children she cherished. But once back, she'd taken on this new school near the towers, drawn in by the plight of the children she taught. Once she'd learned of the towers, her path had changed - no quiet life in the comfort of the art school near the Vatican. She was here in the thick of it. And now, Harold was, too.

Brody raced down the access road with the towers alongside, like dreary haunted ruins, then onto a narrower road, then a cobblestone street at the end of the loop. There were a few businesses here, selling bread, and some Middle Eastern food, but most of the shops were boarded and empty for blocks around.

They swung through the streets, and finally pulled into an opening in a high wall. Brody stopped just inside, and let his man jump out from the seat next to Shaw. He hustled back to the opening and shoved a heavy solid gate across, while Brody drove further up the driveway and parked. The three of them got out and stretched, while they waited for the other soldier. Then they leaned in to pull their luggage and walked the path to the rear door.

Harold had his back to them when they walked in and Reese shot a look toward Shaw. Harold straightened up a little, and turned around, a screwdriver in his hand.

"Mr. Reese, Miss Shaw. I trust you had a good flight?" When they didn't answer, Harold dropped his eyes down, uncomfortable with the silence. A reckoning would have to come, an explanation for his trip here - unaccompanied and unannounced. His Team was less than impressed with his stunt.

"We need to talk later," Reese said, and then the long moment passed, as more of Reese's men came in, throwing their arms around him, slapping him on the back, and pulling him into the next room. They'd planned a surprise for him, a celebration of survival. They'd all heard the story of Grace's rescue in Washington, the return to New York, the ambush on the road by the Zheng, and then the one in the hospital just as Reese had cornered Greer. Next door there was the sound of bottles opening, glasses clinking.

That left Shaw standing there, looking at Harold. He looked up at her, but couldn't read her expression.

"Are you well, Miss Shaw?" he asked.

"Well?"

"I mean, after the ambush – are you recovering well?"

"Yes, thanks for asking, Harold. You?" Shaw sounded like an automaton, no emotion in her voice. It just trailed off.

Harold smiled, amused by her attempt to sound grateful. She just looked at him, uncertain why he was smiling.

"I know I have some things to tell you both. There'll be time, later, as Mr. Reese said. For now, just accept my thank you, for coming all this way." Harold's eyes were soft, like his voice.

Shaw just stared at him. This felt like some kind of game they were playing. It was as if he were trying to tell her something with his eyes - but she had no idea what it was. She felt her frustration rising.

Breaking his stare, and circling with her eyes, she asked, "Is there any food around here?"

Harold started to answer but just then Reese leaned in through the doorway - with a glass in his hand. He was smiling, and his face looked flushed.

"Come on in here you two. We're having a toast."

Shaw rolled her eyes at Harold.

"Someone's gotta be the designated driver tonight. I guess that's me," she said, and followed him in.

 **Dakar, Senegal, late December, 2014**

"We're ready for take-off. Please fasten your seat belts," the steward told them. Minutes later, the jet taxied toward the runway. They sat back in supple leather seats, and watched through the window, as the engines began to rev faster, and then they felt the brakes release. The jet picked up speed down the runway, and they were pressed down in their seats as it lifted off. It climbed quickly in the evening sky, banking and heading East - toward Mali. The sunset would be spectacular up here.

They would fly directly overland to the capital of Mali, Bamako, stop to refuel and then head off on the longer leg of their journey. Over Burkina Faso, skimming by Ghana and Togo, then across the width of Benin. On to Abuja, capital of Nigeria. In just four short hours or so, they'd be standing in Abuja, with no one else the wiser.

Kara leaned forward to look out the window. It was still green below them, full rivers feeding the land, and trees lush now that the recent rainy season had ended. She noticed the color of the soil down there, out in the outskirts of the city, far from the bustle and flair of town. Far from where chic women dressed in long flowing dresses drenched with color; and men wore wide shirts cut long, below the knees, over wide-legged pants.

Where she had gone, there were few people visible at all. The homes had seen better days. The soil looked dry and red there, dusty at the top where vegetation was thin. She'd gone there to the outskirts of town for a meeting with a bush pilot, someone who might be willing to take them to Abuja. He sat on a wooden chair in his yard when they walked up. Children played in the dirt nearby.

Most people spoke French here, and Kara had brought Martine along. Her French was better, and it was best, too, in this country, for women to travel together. Kara didn't mind walking the streets alone. She could certainly take care of herself. But, here, it would attract unwanted attention for her to walk alone, especially so far from the tourist spots.

She'd listened as Martine and the pilot were talking and understood every word. His plane was small, one engine, and the trip to Abuja would take a whole day. There would be refueling stops needed, and long stretches with no place to land. They could see in his eyes that this wasn't going to work. People were afraid here. Afraid of the threat of infection. They all talked of Ebola. It was all around them, and no one wanted to take a chance.

A jet, he'd said. They'd need a jet charter, instead. Expensive, much faster, and for Greer's purposes, justified. Their trip from Senegal would take just four hours, plus one stop to refuel. And then Greer would have his meeting - with men who could bring Samaritan back from its coma, before the NSA found out, and before Harold Finch knew what had happened.

From the window, Dakar was a striking city, sitting astride land jutting out into the sea. She could see the arrowhead shape of it, pointing West.

Dakar, the city where so many had come through her port, chained, heading on slave ships out to the West. A Memorial stood near the beachfront in Dakar, a memorial to the vast numbers taken from their homes, sold, and sent through this harbor far away. Dakar was the last look at their homeland they'd ever see.

Kara had no plans to see it. Such things were for tourists.

They were here on business, on a deadline, just brushing against this city briefly. It would serve their purpose, meet their needs. They would use it and leave it behind, like so many others, with no more thought.

Then back to their civilized world - Europe, England perhaps.

Yes, quite a striking city, from this far away.


	16. Chapter 16

****Chapter 16: better sleep; for a price;**** ** _ **Location confirmed**_**

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 ** **Rome, Italy, late December, 2014****

Shaw could see that Reese was enjoying this – slouching in an overstuffed chair, nursing a glass of beer, listening to their stories about guys they'd all known, years ago, in the Rangers. His men took particular delight in making him laugh, twisting the stories in just such a way so he couldn't guess what was coming. Shaw hadn't seen him like this – loud, unreserved, like a different man. She watched him from her chair in the back.

He knew where she'd pick to sit, from the layout of the room – and so there she was, facing the door, at his back. He could sense her roaming eyes behind him. From her training, her mantra: sit in the back, facing the door: watch everything. With her on duty like this he could allow himself a little downtime with his men.

Someone had gone for food, eventually. By then, Shaw was starving. When they'd come back with food – pasta, meat, salad and bread, they'd laid it all out in the kitchen. Shaw went first, lifting covers, spooning food, while the rest lined up behind her. They'd watched her piling food on her plate, elbowing each other and smiling at Reese, who nodded like this was her usual.

The men ate their fill, and then night watch took off to relieve day watch near Grace's school, and they hustled back to eat and relax. When they'd piled through the back door, noisy, calling his name, they all took turns bear-hugging Reese, meeting Shaw, filling plates, then settling down on the couches near Reese. More beers were opened. Reese noticed the bottles here in Rome were giant, meant to be opened and shared among friends – and it wasn't long before the stories started all over again.

The more the men talked, she noticed, the more Reese relaxed. She could see the look in his eyes, softer, remembering. He was smiling more, and his eyes had a certain softness around them, too, like the stress had left for a little bit. His voice was louder, too, not that terse whisper he usually had. It was interesting watching the transformation. She tried not to stare, but it was hard not to notice the change in his face. And that he'd allowed her to see it. He'd let his guard down in front of her. Always such a private man.

She was curious how he'd be with his men. So much history together. Nothing like bullets flying, people dying, and things blowing up all around you to show what you're made of. These were the kind of friendships that lasted, a brotherhood forged in the grip of war. And from a different chapter in his life, earlier, before things had started to go so sideways.

Harold had bowed out early from the gathering and disappeared down the hall. One of the soldiers had given him his room, so Harold could work into the night without waking the others. Before he left, Harold had told Shaw about their wounded man, and she'd left the story-telling in the living room to check on him. He was having some pain, Harold said, and she could see why.

Someone had wrapped a narrow roll of gauze around his arm - without taking up the slack. The edges were curled and they were catching on everything, pulling them out of place. The tighter ones strangled his arm and cut into skin. And his arm was swelling even more now, the bandage cutting in deeper. She could see staining from the wounds on the top of the bandage, on both sides. Sloppy job. This needed work.

She sat down next to him on his bed and unwound the layers. Near the end, the last layers were stuck down hard, the narrow strips of gauze stiff and dried with ooze from his wounds. She tried to lift them but the pads underneath were stuck down to his skin. The soldier, Denny, pulled back away from her. He was sweating and a little pale from her trying, so she stopped. It was too painful this way. Shaw asked him if they had any supplies around.

"In the van," he said, and hollered out to one of the other men to bring it in for her. Harold was back at the door now, watching her, and he recognized the battered box he'd seen, in the van, after Denny was hit. Harold watched her open the top, and rummage through the kit to see what was there.

"Any sterile saline?" she asked.

"Bottom left, ma'am" Denny said. Shaw dug down deeper into it, below the top tray, and found one of the squat plastic bottles.

"Okay. I'm gonna pour some of this on the dressing and let it sit. It'll soften things up, so we don't have to rip this off." Harold winced. No emotion in Shaw's voice. No attempt to soften her words. Denny was nodding, eyes wide, imagining the worst. He didn't want her to try again, not until the gauze was ready to fall off on its own.

"No need to hurry, ma'am," he said, trying to catch her eye.

She twisted the cover off the bottle, cracking the seal, and then drizzled the saline over the dressing. He held his arm out over a trash can near his bed, catching the watery runoff in the can. They waited.

It took a long time for the dressing to soften. Shaw kept trying to lift a corner, but Denny would grimace and stiffen his shoulders. She drizzled more saline, and after half an hour, the runoff finally went red as the dressing softened and saturated.

"When was this changed last?" Shaw asked him.

"Same one from the beginning, ma'am," he said. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

"You're fired," she said, unemotional, and at first he'd started to laugh, but then when she didn't, he stopped himself. He looked over at Harold with a shrug. But then he yelped as Shaw pulled the dressing in one yank.

"Serves you right," she said, emotionless, looking up at his eyes. Then she pushed his arm back down over the trash, where she could see it better in the light.

"Hold still," she said. Denny looked up at Harold again, who was trying not to look at the hole in his arm.

"Carry on here, Miss Shaw. I have some things to do before I retire this evening." He turned quickly away, averting his eyes, and she could hear his gimpy footsteps in the hallway.

"Is he always like that?" Denny asked her.

"Like what?" And Denny yelped again, as she yanked the other dressing on the opposite side. She inspected the wound closely, and then did some cleaning and mopping with supplies from the kit. Denny kept closing his eyes, and his arm was trembling as she worked. She put him through some strength testing with his hand and fingers, and then some prick tests on his skin. Satisfied, she told him the round had passed through his arm without major damage.

Even with the dressing off and its stranglehold released, his arm was still swollen - and there were deep red marks on his skin from the gauze squeezing down. He'd been walking around all day with the arm hanging down by his side. Nowhere for the swelling to go, like that. Shaw told him he needed to elevate his arm or it would throb all day and night from the swelling.

"Keep your arm up on pillows or a folded blanket tonight," she said. "See how swollen it is? That's not gonna get any better until you elevate it. And keep it in a sling during the day. The more you walk around with it down like that, the longer it's gonna take to heal." He was shaking his head that he understood.

And then in the box she found two foil packets, exactly what she wanted, and squeezed the ointment onto two fresh pads. She laid one over each wound and then layered new gauze on top, twisting the roll once on each revolution to take up the slack. She finished with layers from an elastic wrap on top for help with the swelling. Done, it looked clean, neat, professional.

"Any fever?" she asked. He shrugged.

"Wanna lose your arm?" she said, and looked up at him.

"No, ma'am." She pulled out a paper wrapper and ripped it open. Inside was a flat thermometer strip that she put in his mouth. After a few minutes, she pulled it out, and checked it.

"Normal," she said, and re-wrapped it in the paper. "Keep this over here, and check twice a day. Write down the numbers and show them to me." He agreed, and sat up, now that she was done re-wrapping his arm.

"Thank you, ma'am. Looks great!"

"– welcome. Oh – did you take any antibiotics?" He reached over to his table for a small white envelope, and handed it to Shaw. She saw the name of the drug, and instructions.

"Okay, keep taking these until they're gone. The dressing needs to be changed _daily_. I'll do it myself while I'm here and then you're on your own." He looked her in the eye, and smiled.

"I'll take care of all this," he said, pointing at the debris with his head. Shaw checked the dressing one more time and then got up. He watched her push the paper and plastic wrappings into the trash, and then she nodded to him and left.

She turned right down the hallway to Harold's room and he looked up briefly from his laptop when she leaned in. Hard at work. Then, she headed back toward the boys in the living room, once she'd stopped to wash up at the bathroom sink.

It was after midnight when she'd had her fill of old Army stories and decided she'd head in to bed. Reese heard her stirring, and got up to walk her back to a room.

"You take the bed. I can sleep in the living room on the couch," he said. She was unbuttoning her shirt, and sliding it off. Underneath, there was a heavy black tee. At the plunge of the neckline, he could see three dark circles on her skin, bruising and burns just like the ones he had, left over from the gunshots to her vest. Center of mass hits, three that he could see, over her heart.

She looked up at him. "Not necessary. Sleep over there. It won't bother me," she said, nodding her head toward the second bed.

She pulled a sweatshirt out of her bag and slipped it down over her head. Then she slid her slacks down and folded them together in front of her, onto a hanger. She grabbed sweatpants from the bag and leaned over to pull them on.

Reese could see her back when she bent forward to slide on the sweats. Rod-shaped bruises, long and wide, crisscrossed her back. More were there on the backs of her legs. They didn't seem to cause her any pain, but he winced when he saw them.

He still didn't understand why the Zheng let them live that night, down in the basement. Why? What was the point? Like they were toying with the two of them.

Of course, that was before Harold's computer game had crushed Samaritan. And now, the more people who signed on and played it, the longer Samaritan would stay in its coma. The next time they ran into Greer or his Team, the gloves would be off. No toying. It was war now.

Shaw looked up at Reese again, grabbing her toothbrush from her luggage, and heading for the hall.

"It's okay, Reese. Really," she said, motioning to the bed.

Reese looked over at it. It would be a better sleep than the couch, he thought. He pulled the blanket back, and thwacked the pillow a couple of times with his hand. Good enough. If she didn't care, then when he was ready, he'd come back and sleep there. Maybe in a little while. He just wanted to sit out there a little longer.

He smiled to himself, thinking of Shaw waking up when he came back. Shaw was unarmed. So he didn't have to worry about her shooting him, like an intruder in the middle of the night. She might tackle him, if he woke her up out of sleep, but at least she couldn't shoot him. He smiled again, shaking his head, and limped back down the hall. And tomorrow, he and Harold would have their little heart-to-heart about Harold's Big Adventure. Bonehead.

 **Abuja, Nigeria, late December, 2014**

Nearly midnight by the time they'd landed in Abuja. The refueling stop in Mali was a long affair – almost as long as the rest of the flight. They couldn't see any other traffic flying in or leaving. It was just the slow pace of work that kept them. But, finally, they were airborne again and a few hours later, they could see the lights on the runway up ahead: a single wide, long runway with buildings clustered at the far end. They'd heard about some giant rock jutting up like a mountain near the airport, but it was too dark to see it as they landed. The steward told them that the rock was famous, enormous, sticking straight up out of the ground, and that in certain light, a human face could be seen on its surface. They could see it from the city. They should be sure to see it while they were here in Abuja.

A car from their hotel was there to meet them, and once they'd cleared through the airport and found their bags, they were on their way. A wide highway brought them east and then south to the city proper. It was greener here and there were more trees along the highway than Kara was expecting. This was a city she'd missed visiting on her travels for the CIA. And Greer had been here just once himself, years back, when Samaritan was just a glimmer in his mind.

There were people here he'd done business with before. A little phishing expedition they'd handled for him in the past. He'd paid them well for their time – and they hadn't forgotten.

Times were leaner now in Abuja. Not many ways for young people to earn a living. Some had turned to the internet, like the Yahoo Boys, cyber criminals who looked for victims overseas - to fleece them like sheep. Child's play.

Greer was looking for something bigger. A master. Someone who could crack through the prison walls around Samaritan. Someone who could free it, wake it from its sleep. Such a man existed here. Fabled to exist, but no one seemed to know who he was. A shadowy figure, someone who protected himself with elaborate rituals, fake disguises, electronic voices. A master hacker-for-hire, in the back streets of Abuja, and on the dark web.

They were going to find him here, and he would take back Samaritan from Harold Finch.

For a price.

 **Rome, Italy, late December, 2014**

All the lights were off, and he walked softly on the floor. Light from the fireplace glowed orange in the room, and he was close enough to feel the heat. Reese's chair faced the fire, and he could see a hand with a stubby glass in it resting on the narrow arm. Closer, he moved closer to the chair and heard breathing. Then, for a moment, it stopped.

"Harold?"

"Yes, Mr. Reese." Finch limped into the light, and to a chair facing back toward Reese. He lowered himself down, stiffly, and raised his bad leg up onto a small stool in front. He settled himself and then raised his eyes to Reese.

Reese raised his glass and took a sip. Whiskey. He was sitting by the fire, alone, sipping whiskey. Harold's face softened. On his cheek, in the light of the fire, a single tear.

It took some time before Reese could speak. In his whisper-voice:

"I miss her, Harold."

Reese raised his glass again, and took a sip.

Finch closed his eyes. Carter.

He thought back to the early days, with all the horror of that day, that brilliant blue-sky day, when the Towers had come down, and hearts had stopped beating. When Nathan had come to tell him. Never again. This could never happen again. And then the work, in earnest, to make it so. The planning, the writing, the testing, and then the teaching, of this being – this electronic being - behind the glassy eyes, who watched him and asked him to explain. So curious, so wise, yet so child-like. It needed rules, and examples. It had to learn how to learn, and once it had, it was off on its own quest - to understand. Fledged, but always looking back to him. Like a father.

But then, when they'd realized their dilemma – to know of but not stop the carnage, it was excruciating. He had to do something.

Harold went looking for the right man, a man with the right skills, who could step in and stop it - someone already dead to the rest of the world. Someone like John Reese.

And when he'd found Mr. Reese, it was complicated. He'd come with baggage, lots of baggage. Detective Carter, for one. She'd had him in her grasp, and then lost him. And she wasn't the type to just let it go. She would find him, arrest him, take him in off the streets.

Then their months of cat-and-mouse, and the evidence each day that Mr. Reese was the right man for this job. Quiet. Skilled. Dangerous. Everything he needed for his plan to work. But hunted. Hunted by the law.

Lesser men might have backed away. But not Mr. Reese. He hadn't given in. He'd pulled her in, closer, instead. Like a fish on a line, he'd baited her. Made her take notice. See that they could work together. Against her better judgment. But there was something about him. Something she could trust. And in a little while, the surprise.

The surprise of Detective Carter changing sides.

Who could have guessed in those first days that this would happen? Mr. Reese, Detective Carter, then Detective Fusco, Miss Shaw, and even Miss Groves. His team had somehow self-assembled. Talented, driven, flawed. No one could have seen this coming.

So many lives saved, so many dangers averted. They were triumphant for a time.

Until.

Until the price came due. Nathan, Grace, Detective Carter, and almost Mr. Reese.

Was it all worth it?

Finch looked up at Mr. Reese again.

Firelight in his eyes.

Shadows on his face.

And a single tear on his cheek.

He wanted to say something, to explain why he had come. Alone. Back to Italy. But Reese spoke up instead.

"You don't need to say it, Finch. We've all had our losses – I know why you came."

And, down the hall, in the darkness, a message flashed on Harold's laptop:

 _Update... Location confirmed. Abuja, Nigeria..._


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17: "Mercenaries, mostly" (rated T for violence);**

* * *

 **Rome, Italy, late December, 2014, (** **rated T for violence)**

Just before dawn the phone rang, and Brody sat up in his bed. On the other end of the call, the men on night watch were watching activity in the alleyways near Grace's school.

"Feels like the party's starting – ," he said, and then he got up out of bed, and headed down the hall, knocking on doors, telling his men to get up.

Reese could hear them moving and opened his eyes. The fire was out in the fireplace, and the ashes had all gone cold. He'd fallen asleep in the chair there, after Harold had left, and now he was cold and stiff from sitting all night. He could smell coffee brewing, so someone was up, and then the men were coming in with their gear, gathering there in the living room. He stood up, stretched, and went looking for Brody.

"Night watch called. There's some kind of action goin' on near the school," Brody said, leaning over, pulling his gear bag up off the floor. "We've been hearin' chatter lately like they're gettin' ready for somethin' – can't tell what, though. We're gonna take a run over there and see what we see. The other day, with Four-eyes, we took out a nest of 'em," Brody said, looking up at Reese.

"What about the police?"

"They stay out of it, over here. These people don't call them when things happen. Back home, for most of 'em, the police can't be trusted. So they don't even think about calling 'em here."

"Who are they, the ones you pick up?"

"Mercenaries, mostly. Workin' for Greer's people. Hired guns from eastern Europe, the Middle East, Africa. Plenty of people around lookin' for action and some money."

"I'll come with you," Reese said. "And, I'll need a weapon."

"Me, too." They turned around and Shaw was there, dressed in black tactical gear.

"Okay. Glad to have you. I'll see what I have," he said and walked back down the hallway.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Some kind of action near the school. They called it in a little while ago. Brody says they've been hearing chatter about something going down soon. He just wants to go over and check it out. Maybe nothing," Reese said.

He went back to the room, and changed into fatigues, then threw some water on his face to wake up. His knee was bad today, aching from sitting in the cold all night. He tried to flex it up and down to warm it up, but it wasn't happy.

When he went back out to the living room, the men were all there, drinking coffee and eating leftover bread and hunks of cheese from dinner last night. Shaw handed Reese a cup of steaming black coffee and a handful of bread with cheese wrapped inside. He nodded, and drank down the coffee, then went back out to the kitchen for more. A new pot had just finished dripping, and he leaned back out toward the living room, with his cup held high, gesturing to Shaw. She nodded yes, and walked back there to meet him.

Reese poured more into her cup, then his, and then a few more stragglers showed up, for refills. He and Shaw stayed in the kitchen, while the rest of the day watch team moved past to the door, hefting their packs on their shoulders.

Brody showed up next, with two more rifles and a bag of extra ammo, handing them off to Reese and Shaw. They checked over the rifles while Brody drank his coffee, and then the three of them left for the back lot together.

Two vans pulled out, the day watch team in one, and Reese, Shaw, Brody and four crew in the other. On the way there, Brody radioed the night watch team near the school.

"Anything yet?" Brody asked.

"Nothin' so far. But it don't feel right. Too many people just hangin' around." the soldier answered.

Reese's phone rang in his pocket. It was Finch, back in the Headquarters house.

"Mr. Reese, the Machine is sending a warning. There is trouble up ahead of you. A roadblock or something with the traffic. Be cautious."

"I'll let 'em know," Reese said. He looked ahead on the street, and then turned to Brody.

"Watch for something with the traffic up ahead. Got a tip there may be trouble." Brody nodded back to Reese.

"On our way. Gotta go," he said to night watch. Then he clicked over to the van up in front.

"Heads up. Watch for something with the traffic up there. Got a tip," he said. Through the back window of the van ahead, he could see the driver lift his hand and wave it side to side, acknowledging.

Brody drove them down the cobblestone street, then turned down another, then another, and finally, onto the one running past Grace's school. The buildings for blocks were empty, boarded up. And no one was on the streets.

"Looks like a ghost town," Reese said.

"Yeah. Something's up. This area would usually have _some_ traffic by now."

There was a flash of blue from the right up ahead, engine noise, and their black van up ahead swerved left, tires screeching, then their engine revving. There were gunshots, and the blue truck lurched but kept coming, aiming to ram the van, but it swerved again, and the truck clipped their bumper instead. Glass sprayed out all over the street, and the van spun tight right, firing more shots into their windshield.

They could hear acceleration, as the van kept turning the other way, accelerating free of the wreck, and then racing back down the street, toward Brody. The blue truck careened like a billiard ball, jumped the curb, spraying sparks from the undercarriage, and slammed straight into a pole. It stopped dead, with the engine racing, fluid gushing out below the front grille. White smoke trailed from the engine.

In their van, everyone was watching the blue truck, but no one was coming out. It sat there, pinned against the pole, smoking.

Brody had stopped, idling in the street, and their black van drove past them on their right and u-turned in the street behind them.

"Talk to me," Brody said into the box at his shoulder.

"We're okay," from the other van.

Then Brody was on the radio with night watch, telling them the vans were under attack, but to stay put with Grace's school. Reese and Shaw scanned rooftops and windows, looking for snipers, open windows, anything that looked wrong. Denny, the soldier Shaw had treated, knelt in the back of the van, looking out at the damaged one behind them.

"Looks minor. Just the bumper. It's drive-able," he called up to Brody, who relayed it back to the van. They watched as it pulled up alongside. The two vans sat idling side-by-side in the street. Minutes passed.

"I wonder what they're waiting for?" Shaw said, out loud.

Up ahead, a car pulled around the corner, fast, coming their way, then a second and a third, fanning wide across the street, two in front and one behind.

"Back up, back up!" Brody yelled into his radio. The two vans screeched into reverse, full-speed backwards down the street.

"You first!" Brody yelled, and then he slowed for a moment, while the other van put some space between them, and spun itself around, lurching and heading forward down the street. Then Brody sped up, backwards, and spun them around in the van, tires screeching, stomachs churning in the turn.

And then he accelerated up the street toward the other van. They pulled side-by-side, watching in the rear view mirrors as the cars were gaining.

"Split up. Go right. I'll go left, next corner. Smoke and tacks."

At the next corner, the vans turned opposite ways, down the side-streets. The cars separated, too, two on Brody and one to the right on the other van. Brody accelerated down the street, swinging side to side, using up the whole street, with the two cars staggered in a pattern behind him. He hit the gas, drawing them in, faster, behind him.

Brody reached down to the console near his knee, opened a clear plastic cover and flipped the toggle inside. Dark smoke poured from the back of the van, and then, just a moment later, he flipped the toggle the other way, and they heard metal dropping and bouncing on the street. Squealing tires, a loud impact, crunching and glass breaking, then cars flipping over and over in the street behind them. They couldn't see it through the smoke, but those sounds couldn't be anything else.

They pulled down the next street and stopped at the curb, Denny pushing the back open once they'd stopped rolling. The men rushed out with guns ready.

Half crossed the street, and half stayed on this side, working back toward the wreck. Smoke was thinning, and they could see outlines of the cars, tires flat, one turned over on its roof, the other on its side against a building.

Reese and Shaw saw dozens of palm-sized black shapes on the street; heavy iron triangles with spikes sticking up. Tacks. These were deployed from the back of their van, dumped with the toggle onto the street. Designed so no matter how they bounced or rolled, there was always a spike aimed up when they stopped.

In the smoke, the drivers behind them hadn't seen them come out, and they drove over them with their tires. Instant flats, at high speed, blinded in the smoke. They'd had no chance. They'd smashed together, bounced off, flipped in the street, over and over, into the front of the old stone building.

Brody's men were checking for signs of life in the cars, but the roofs were crushed in, and the sides collapsed. There were bodies on the street, and it didn't look good for anyone left inside.

He was on his radio with his driver in the other van. They were out of the van, he said, taking fire in the street.

"Head out!" Brody yelled. "Denny, you're here with Rizzo and Jax. Get this mopped up."

The rest of them ran back to the corner to the van and slid in, while Brody gunned the engine and sped off. He wound through empty back streets, accelerating on the straights and squealing around corners, circling back behind their van's position.

"Comin' up now," he said into his radio. They could hear gunshots ahead, and Brody drove around a corner, and up close to a wall. They jumped out and hugged the wall, down an alleyway parallel to the street. Gunshots got louder, echoing in the alleyway. They were nearing a corner, Reese in front on Shaw's side, and Brody in front, with a fourth man behind him, on the left side.

Bright glare shone down on Shaw's face for a second, and she looked up to see where it was coming from. A window, forced open, high above the street. She could see hands and arms, and part of his body behind the window glass; and then, he was kneeling down. A muzzle appeared at the window corner, pointing down the street to their right, toward their men.

She lifted her rifle, said softly, "don't do it," aimed at the glass, bottom right corner, and squeezed off the shot. The glass wobbled, punctured and blood splattered all over the inside of the glass. Shaw watched as the muzzle tipped forward. Then the whole thing slid out, nose down, banging on the terrace railings to the street below. They watched for motion up inside the window, but nothing moved there at all.

In Brody's earpiece, "four down, one missing."

He turned to the others and gestured to them, one left. At the corner, Brody headed left with his man, and Reese and Shaw headed right. An overhang above shielded them from shots above. But cover was sparse from the side. Reese could see his men up ahead, kneeling behind their van, looking up at a building in front of them. He and Shaw stopped walking and swung their eyes up to the building, too, searching for anything threatening.

From the corner of his eye, Reese saw a movement, a quick motion of a head peeking out, street level. Someone was facing down the street toward his men, body bracing back on a corner wall, with the tip of his rifle held high, coming down, as he pulled the butt back against his shoulder. He was ready to fire.

Reese stepped away from the building into the street, out at an angle where he could see the shooter. Reese shouldered his rifle, firing, firing until the man was down and didn't move. He stood there watching, with his rifle on the shooter, as Shaw moved up alongside him.

Reese limped up beside her and kept his gun on the shooter, while Shaw kicked the rifle away, and knelt down to check for a pulse. She looked up at Reese and shook her head, no.

In a few minutes, the van pulled up beside them with the day watch team inside. They piled out and surrounded Reese, Shaw, and the shooter. One of the men was searching through pockets, and snapping a picture of the dead man's face with his phone.

Brody walked up behind them, talking with the men near Grace's school. While their car chase was happening, night watch had had to go out after the men in the alleyway. They'd started to make their move toward Grace's school.

There was a fight in the alleyway. Two of Greer's men were down and wounded. The rest were dead. Minor casualties among their own team. Grace and the children were safe and unaware.

For the rest of the morning, the teams spread out at each location, winching the cars up onto flatbed trucks, stacking them side-by-side, like junkers. They drove to a warehouse, where the bodies were pulled, photographed, searched, and returned to the wrecks. Then, late in the evening two flatbeds headed out, cars and the blue truck covered with tarps.

Rocking along, with the wind flapping the tarps, they drove in the dark twenty miles to a road at the side of a lake. Secluded, deep in the trees, they drove to a spot where the road turned sharply left, like a metal hair pin, then back the way it had come. The road was narrow and the ground fell away steeply down to the lake. The spot was muddy, deserted, unlit. At the tip of the turn, they'd stopped the flatbeds. In the dark, one after the other, they'd winched the wrecks off the trucks, down the steep slope, and into the lake. This was a huge, deep lake to the East of Rome. More than three hundred feet down to the bottom. No one was going to find Greer's soldiers here.

By morning, the next day, hardly any evidence remained of the battles on the streets. Some damage on a pole, paint scrapes on some buildings, skid marks and some leftover glass in the streets. But all the Tacks were picked up, back in their bins in the vans. All the cars, the blue truck, the bodies were hidden.

And the last step, to raid their HQ, was finished. Greer's threat in Rome was over, for the moment. Five prisoners taken, and all of their equipment pulled or destroyed. Computers, documents, a treasure trove of data for Harold and his Machine. Perhaps there would be plans, timetables, data they could use.

Without Samaritan, Greer's teams were helpless. No warnings, no intel. Vulnerable for the first time since Samaritan had powered up.

Here was their chance. If they could find him, capture Greer, this all could be over soon. Samaritan crippled. Greer captured. His teams broken and scattered.

For the first time, there was light at the end of the long, bloody tunnel.


	18. Chapter 18

****Chapter 18: move on (rated T for adult themes); forty-four; Inside****

* * *

 **Lower Manhattan, January, 2015**

It was hard walking on the snowy sidewalk, the two of them holding each other up as they weaved along. Root giggled like some kind of schoolgirl, her arm draped around the shoulders of her new friend – the one she'd just met at her favorite bar.

She'd gone there alone, late, and it was already crowded, and so loud, the music drowning any hope of conversation. Up at the bar, she'd just started to sip her drink when the first one came up alongside. Root felt someone lean in close, reaching out to signal the bartender for another, but pressing in on her as if losing her balance.

"Oh, sorry," she'd said, and leaned in a little harder, with her forearm on Root's shoulder to steady herself.

Then, " – think I've had one too many."

Root looked up from her own drink, and in the dim light, for a second, her heart jumped – in that flash, Sameen. Same body shape and height, but Root couldn't see her face.

Her breath caught, and she could feel herself reeling that Sameen was there. She'd come to her senses, come back to find her – tell her how sorry she was, how miserable she'd been after their fight – all of this in just that first flash of recognition.

She should have called. Let her know she was coming home. Damn. She could be so infuriating.

But then, when she'd leaned forward into the light for her drink, of course, she wasn't Sameen at all.

That hurt in Root's chest. And it even hurt in the place on her left cheek where the bruise was, from Sameen's strike that night in the shower. Root reached up with the back of her left hand to the spot on her cheek. And all the pain came pouring back in. That same pain, wave after wave of it, for days since Sameen had left for Italy. She couldn't get herself out of it. She was drowning in it.

Enough! She'd had enough – that's why she'd dressed up tonight, fixed her hair, come out to her favorite bar tonight. To forget.

This woman at her side, this stranger - not Sameen. But enough like her to make Root think of her – and she didn't want to have to think of her. Not tonight. Root reached over and pulled the woman's arm from her shoulder.

"I'm waiting for someone," Root said – straight into her face, a little too loud, but the music was so loud she couldn't help it. The stranger backed away, hollow eyes, mouthing something Root couldn't hear in the din. But at least she was gone; and Root could pull herself back together again. She took a long drink from her glass. Half-gone in one long pull. She could feel the warm feeling start to spread through her body from the drink. Ah, yes, more of that, please. She smiled inside herself.

She let her mind drift, sipping now, feeling the cold drink slide down inside, and turn to warmth – like her own internal glow. Just stay with that, she said to herself, stay with that and forget about the rest.

Days had gone by, days followed by long nights – and no word. Nothing from Sameen. She'd checked her phone for messages – fifty times a day. Empty silence. This wasn't right. This was Sameen being cruel – oblivious and cruel. Didn't she get this? Didn't she know how much this hurt?

Root lifted her glass and drank down the rest, raising her hand to the bartender for another. She was going to forget about Sameen tonight, stop consuming herself.

Whatever it took, it was time to move on.

 **Manhattan, January, 2015**

The doorbell rang, startling him for a moment, and then he realized his food was finally there. He slid his slippers on, and hurried to the panel next to the apartment door. On the screen it showed the outside of the apartment building – a fuzzy image of the deliveryman, standing on the stoop with a white bag in his hand. Leon buzzed him into the lobby, saying he'd be right down.

He was careful not to say anything to the deliveryman, who spoke Mandarin, too. It was part of his strategy to avoid letting Greer and his people know that he spoke the language. That way he could listen in when Kara and the Zheng were making their plans. It never hurt to keep some assets a secret.

So, he smiled at the thin old man in the lobby. He handed him the correct change, plus a little something for his trouble, riding it over from the take-out two streets down, and in the snow. He could see the flakes melting on the man's clothes. Leon looked out the glass on the front door and could see the snow coming down, straight down from the sky, like it meant business. It was starting to stick on the grass and the pavement.

He'd been hard at work all day, and hadn't even heard the forecast. Snow. Always a problem in the City. Where do you put it all? And how do you get the streets cleaned? Where do all the cars go? He nodded to the old man, who turned and went back out into the snow, wiping his seat clean on the old bicycle with the basket on the front. He had another stop, another white bag in the basket.

Leon went back up to his apartment, and into his kitchen. The silver tin was still hot when he slid it out onto the counter. He pulled down a bowl and took out the carton of white rice from the bag. With chopsticks from the package, he scraped some of the sticky rice packed down inside the carton out into the bottom of the bowl. And then, he pried open the cover of the tin and lifted shrimp and veggies from the sauce onto the rice in the bowl. Then he lifted the tin, burning his fingertips, and poured some sauce over the top.

The tin hit the counter as it slipped from his fingers – too hot for him to stand it any longer, and hot sauce slopped out onto his shirt and pants. Expletives, in Mandarin, spewed out, while he backed away, and wiped himself down with a handful of napkins from the bag.

Lucky he hadn't done this in the middle of his work table, where all the maps were spread out. And his notes. All the notes he'd written to himself, from the research he'd done. Soaked in sauce, ink running. Ruined. It would have been a nightmare, to re-create everything he'd done. Thank God for small favors, he thought.

He sat down on the couch, in the living room, shoveling rice and hot food from the bowl into his mouth. This was his first real break all day. He was getting down to the last dozen or so locations. He'd started with nearly fifty, forty-four to be exact, and his heart had sunk when he first saw the list. But, little by little, he'd whittled them down to these last few.

Harold Finch's library office. He'd been inside it – just once – but the memory of it kept haunting him. There was something about the place, something that should make it easier to find. It was there inside his brain, but he couldn't get to it, couldn't remember what it was.

When the Man in the Suit had blindfolded him and brought him to Harold's office, there was something about it. Something he was desperate to recall. If he could just remember, he could cut through the rest of the list and find the one he was looking for – and the prize, the prize that Greer had promised for finding it, would be his.

He shoveled more food – hadn't realized he was so hungry, but this was his first meal of the day as he thought about it. He was consumed by it, this project. He thought about the trips to the public library, and the first meeting with one of the reference librarians. The man had been underwhelmed with the story Leon had concocted, about finding the right sites for shooting some movie scenes.

"Mayor's office," the librarian had said, trying to shoo him off like some low-life street-person in his midst. He could almost sense his bow-tied torso leaning away, as if Leon was going to infest him with something. So Leon had persisted. It gave him great pleasure to stand there, sidle in a bit closer, and watch the librarian pull back further, flaring his nostrils, reaching for pen and paper on a shelf behind him. He jotted, in perfect script, the name of another reference librarian he was certain could help. And then, he'd crossed his arms and pushed out his chest as if to say, "you're dismissed."

Leon took the paper, bowed graciously, and turned away, muttering expletives in Mandarin as he read the name written on the paper: Florence Eldridge. He thought perhaps that he needed a change in strategy. He went back home, and sat down at his computer. Very quickly, he found her on the library website. Miss Florence Eldridge. No smile. Grey hair. Skinny. With the collar of her dress buttoned all the way up to the top button. A perfect match for Bow-tie. Leon shuddered.

He looked through the list of Miss Eldridge's interests and one of them caught his eye: _History and Memorabilia of the New York Public Library System._

Bingo. The old geezer had probably lived through most of it herself, personally. He leaned back in his chair and smiled to himself. Kill her with kindness. His new strategy. If he was going to find Harold Finch's office, he'd need to find someone who knew where the old abandoned sites could have been. Someone must know. There must be some record somewhere. He just needed a lead, a little guidance.

He was going to enjoy this. He went into his bathroom and showered. Then, he assembled some supplies from a shelf in his closet, things that had been useful for him in the past. He had some packs of makeup and a few wedge-shaped sponges to apply it. But for now, he just wanted to make a few easy changes to his appearance.

He picked up a bit of the makeup on a sponge and rubbed it lightly into his hair at the temples, and then a tiny bit of white make-up on another sponge, over the same spots. It turned his hair gray there, just a little, but the effect was already amazing. He barely recognized himself. And then, he added glasses, round metal-rimmed glasses, long out of style. A purple long-sleeved dress shirt with a collar, and an argyle sweater vest, over gray corduroy pants. He looked at himself in the mirror. Aged twenty years, maybe more. He was satisfied. But there was another way to find out if his disguise worked.

He showed up at the library, with sheafs of paper under his arm, jotting notes on a yellow sticker on top. He looked down at the librarian, the one with the bow-tie, and held his breath for a moment. The man glanced up at him and then leaned forward, toward him.

"May I help you?"

 **Manhattan, January, 2015**

The subway from Queens was nearly empty at this time of day. The usuals were there in their usual seats, eyes closed, bodies swaying with the motion of the subway car rolling along underground. He watched the people, and when he was tired of them, he looked out into the darkened tunnel. Little to see, until the stations, when the brighter lights lit the scene and he could see the tiles on the walls, and numbers painted on the steel beams, identifying each station. If you could read them. Ping didn't read English. But he knew the stops along the way, and the one where he needed to stand up, to be ready for the next one, where the doors would open and a voice would announce something on the loudspeaker before the doors closed again. Usually, he was the only one leaving that car, and the platform was deserted. It was better this way. After the crowds had gone away and the daily commute was finished. Late in the evening was the best time to travel, to do what he had to do.

He would walk up the steps, the brass railing smooth under his hand, and down a hallway with low ceilings and garish lighting before he got to the stairs that lead up to the street level. Even at this hour, the streets were busy. There were always people out on the streets, walking, signaling for a car, on their way to some place. Sometimes, they'd wave or say something. He'd gotten used to it, seeing people all the time. It was not how it was back home. The little cluster of shacks nearby where he went for supplies. They watched him come and go, their eyes suspicious. He was a stranger. Not one of them. They never spoke unless spoken to. They disappeared from the streets when a stranger happened by.

This City engulfed you. You were a dot in the vastness of its space. And that was something Ping could understand. On his hill, outside his shack, the vastness of the Steppes spread in all directions, grasslands waving in the wind, to the horizon. And the sky was so black, the stars sparkled like crystals from the ground, so many it made his head spin to see them.

Here in the City, with all the light shining up, the sky was dimmer, shrouded by the millions of pinpoints of light. The stars in the sky were weaker, the sky grayer, washed out, not the intense blackness he was used to.

Ping was used to the City sky now, and the buildings that rose up from the concrete blocks to the clouds. And the heat and smell from the grates above the subway tracks, and the rumble of the cars rolling down the tracks below his feet, deep down in the tunnels.

This place never rested. It was alive, constantly moving, like a serpent. It would devour you if you let it.

He made his way through the streets, to his goal. A building with a wide brick face, and a stairway on the front, leading to a black door. As he approached, he looked for lights on inside. Nothing more than the few automatic lights that came on by themselves with the darkness. He walked by the stairway, and glanced up the stairs. They were empty. He walked down the street a little further, then stopped to look at a car on the street, as though it had caught his attention. He spent some time, admiring the lines, walking around it again and again, so anyone watching might have forgotten the direction he'd come from.

He doubled back to the apartment, and slowed in front of it, lifting his hands in front of his face, like he was trying to light a cigarette. He looked up the stairs again. Still empty. He made it look like he was having trouble lighting his cigarette, and walked into the shelter of the stairway. Leaves and some paper had blown up the steps in a swirl, and he was pleased. He climbed them to the top step, and leaned down, reaching with his fingers to the lower corner of the doorway. There, in the dark, he could feel, but not really see, a thin slender piece of bamboo reed he'd fastened to the door. Still there. No one had opened the door, disturbing the reed from its spot. The tall American had not come home yet, at least, not through this door.

He raised himself up, his leg complaining when he pushed off on the right side. He groaned softly to himself. The winter weather. It always made this old wound start hurting again. He flexed and straightened it a few times to see if it was going to pop, before he turned back down the stairs. It held. Sometimes, if he wasn't careful, or in the heat of battle, it would give out, just like when the injury had first happened. A kick to the inside of his knee that he hadn't blocked well. He felt the pop as the sinew on the outer part of the joint ruptured, and he went down to the ground. He would never forget how vulnerable he'd been in that moment. It could have been his last breath, right there.

Ping descended the rest of the steps, carefully, and then went out into the street, remembering to hold his hand to his face, as though smoking his cigarette. Down the street, to the alleyway, he ducked in and walked down the narrow lane to the back corner of the apartment building. He swung left, down further to another stairway. No one was around this back exit for the building. A single weak light lit the stairs, and he climbed them, flushing out a cat at the top, who was often there. His footsteps scared it away, and he moved closer to the door, feeling for a matching piece of reed hidden at the corner. It was there, undisturbed. This door hadn't been used either.

He nodded to himself. He was a patient man. The signs were all pointing to their next meeting. They would meet on his terms, on his turf. But if the Tall American came here, instead, a little surprise would be waiting. Inside.


	19. Chapter 19

****Chapter 19:**** ** _ **and**_** ** _ **your enemies closer;**_** ** **Olawale****

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 ** **Rome, Italy, January, 2015****

In dim early morning light Harold leaned forward over his open laptop, fingers clicking rapidly over the keys. Open boxes of documents and the hard drives from the raid on Greer's Rome headquarters surrounded him – on the table, on the floor around the desk, and spread across his bed. The work had kept Harold and the Machine buried for days, poring through stacks of paper, analyzing data files downloaded off the hard drives. And now, the skeleton of Greer's plan had begun to emerge.

Greer was on the verge of something big – something complicated and far-reaching, cutting across agencies inside the U.S. Government, but also sites in Europe, Australia, and Japan. And just as the timeline was beginning to converge on a single date, Harold had sprung his trap – the computer game he'd designed with Root and Logan Pierce.

Its purpose had been to generate a man-made flood, a tsunami of data so immense that it would overwhelm Samaritan. The game had pushed so much traffic to its networks that Samaritan had drowned in it, and every counter-measure that Greer's people had tried, each had ended in failure. Samaritan was currently blind and deaf, sitting there, mumbling to itself.

Harold had Arthur Claypool to thank for that. Before Arthur had succumbed to his cancer, he'd given Harold the key to the back door into Samaritan's code. Every good programmer knows to leave a back door, just in case – a kind of fail-safe to use if things started to run amok. It was hard to believe that Arthur was really gone. Harold had known him since their college days – the three of them: Nathan, Arthur and Harold had met there, and become lifelong friends.

Harold sat back for a moment at his laptop, remembering those last days, before Arthur had slipped away into a coma. A smile, with just half of his face working, had come over him as he whispered of a few rainy-day features he'd programmed into Samaritan, ones that Harold could exploit now to keep pressure on Samaritan. Arthur was brilliant, and even playful sometimes with his coding. The two had laughed together as Arthur revealed one of his favorite keys to get access to Samaritan's code. It was a musical phrase, the five tones from a movie they'd all watched a hundred times in college, the five tones François Truffaut had played to the alien mothership in _Close Encounters._

Harold smiled as he remembered the two of them trying to hum the five tones, just like in the movie, laughing out loud, like they'd drunk too much scotch, at their tone-deaf results.

That evening had been the last day that Harold had seen Arthur alive. Hard to believe he was really gone. Harold looked up at the window. Morning was here, and he should work a little longer on the data. Arthur hadn't lived long enough to see them stop Greer. But the most important thing was that he had given them access to the beating heart of Samaritan.

Using Arthur's secrets, the three of them, Harold, Root, and Logan had designed and launched the first of their attack strategies, the computer game – created to attract a following among university-student and computer geek circles. It was an overwhelming success. The game launch week in Manhattan had filled a warehouse with gamers, programmers, media, and geeks of every genre. Harold was pleased to see ever-increasing numbers of new users, even now, finding the game and signing on to play.

And it hadn't hurt that Logan Pierce was seen splashing prize money around to those who'd excelled at the game. Competition among teams and individuals vying for prize money was intense – and publicly well-rewarded thanks to Logan, stimulating even stronger interest in the game.

As designed, the more people who played, the more network traffic the game generated, and this was at the heart of their strategy. As long as people continued to play, the network would rapidly swell with data, which the game's programming then aimed at Samaritan, swamping its systems again and again. Data from playing the game bounced like ping pong balls among sites all over the earth, each one acting like a mirror, reflecting the traffic back to Samaritan – every second of every day.

Harold knew, though, that it was only a matter of time before Greer's people found a way to break it. And he suspected that this was the reason for Greer and Kara Stanton's trip to Abuja, in Nigeria.

The Machine had tracked them down once they'd left the hospital ship, _Argos._ It had picked up their trail in Senegal, and made the connection with their new identities.

Coded transmissions sent to the consulate in Dakar from Washington had piqued Harold's interest, and the Machine had intercepted a series of them: that Greer and his companions were in-bound and that they would be needing _identity services_ on arrival.

Harold had rightly suspected that this meant new identities would be provided for the three, and the Machine had easily tagged the new names when they passed through Customs in Dakar. Fortunately for Harold, government infrastructure, including IT, in West Africa was lax and leaky, and that had made Harold's job tracking Greer almost child's play.

Soon after, two of the three new names appeared on a roster for a charter jet flying out of Dakar to Abuja. The Machine had alerted Harold, who was certain that this was Greer and one of the women – looking for an answer to their problem.

Nigeria had a reputation for a thriving hacker community. For years, members of these gangs had perpetrated scams across the internet. People and businesses were harmed, and calls came from around the world, pressuring the government to do something to stop it. A few very public arrests were made in Abuja and Lagos. A few gangs of young men were hauled off to jail. But the entrepreneurial spirit persisted, and more always came to take their places. In a city where there were no jobs for young people, they'd created their own.

Harold had followed all these stories through the years with interest, aware that these hackers would become more sophisticated over time. He had even extended personal invitations to several of the best-known hackers from Nigeria. He wanted them to be there for the launch of the computer game in New York. Harold smiled, as the line from another favorite movie came to mind: _keep your friends close, and your enemies closer._

In another room down the hall the morning light was hidden behind heavy blackout shades that blocked the light. It was dark and cool in the room, and the two of them slept while Harold worked a few feet away.

In her dream, Shaw was answering the phone and she could hear his voice, stronger and clear now that the hoarseness had gone away. Her eyes smiled when she heard Marco speaking. Something about the slow, deep tones in his voice made her feel like she was down-shifting, smoothing out at a lower rpm, where she could run like that all day.

Before she'd left for Italy with Reese, she'd been able to get one visit in at the house in Glen Cove, his father's house, where Marco had gone to recuperate after the run-in with Greer. The sprawling house had become a fortress, with security systems, police and high-tech surveillance everywhere. Most of the family were kept away for now, but Marco's mother, who had been in Italy when everything had happened, insisted on returning to care for him. Shaw had managed to miss that reunion. Her own flight to Italy had been hastily organized, and there was no time to wait around to meet her. She wasn't in any hurry to meet another one of Marco's family – there were already way too many of them. Marco's father was fine, and maybe his little sister, but the rest were too much to deal with.

She'd gone to see Marco the morning after the scene in the shower with Root. Better to put that behind her now. There was no good way to make things right with Root. Things were more than likely going to get ugly before they came to some kind of understanding. Damn. People were just so complicated. Why couldn't they just stay away?

Except for Marco. He could stay. She thought about how bad he'd looked in the hospital. Kicked and stomped by Greer's bodyguards, he'd looked like he wasn't going to make it at first. Reese had stayed there in the waiting room with her, outside the SICU. She nodded to herself when she thought of it. Shaw knew he was there to keep her from jumping up, interfering, and telling off the doctors taking care of Marco. Sometimes, she thought, Reese could be – useful. But most of the time he was just in the way.

She thought of the visit with Marco, before she'd left on the trip. When she'd walked into his room, she could see how thin he was from the hospital. He was up out of bed in a chair, and he'd pushed himself up out of it when she'd appeared. But after a few steps toward her, he was getting shaky on his feet, and she'd stepped in quickly to catch him as he was starting to lean.

She smiled to herself as she remembered his long black hair sliding down over her skin as she brought him back to the chair. It reminded her of that first night, in his apartment, in Manhattan.

She and Reese had gone there to interview Marco about the woman who'd tried to shoot him in the park that evening. Shaw had already been there, casing his apartment after the Machine assigned him as her new POI. And she remembered thinking the place was nothing like what she was expecting from his appearance: long black hair, a bandanna, and a motorcycle.

She was expecting something more like a biker bar when she broke in, but what she found was more like a professor's house – stacks of books, and music, a fancy kitchen with all the frills. And in his bedroom, this old carved wooden headboard on his bed, a family heirloom from Europe. Shaw was intrigued – and that didn't happen very often.

The longer their interview went on, the more she found that she couldn't stop looking at him. She was feeling things she shouldn't be feeling, for a POI.

Marco was an assignment, her POI, she kept telling herself – but it hadn't mattered.

She remembered Reese watching her, trying to get her back into the interview again, then finally realizing where this was going. He could see it in her eyes, and the way she kept looking at Marco. He'd made up a way to leave the two of them alone, and then backed his way out of it, with a final, serious nod to Shaw. He knew she could take care of herself, and God help him if Marco turned out to be the bad guy after all. Shaw would handle it, and Marco would never surface again.

But that's not how things had gone. Marco had taken her to his kitchen, made espresso for her, offered cake from the part of Italy where his family kept their home. And then, he'd looked up at her, with those eyes, finally asking her if she was the one who'd saved his life that night.

One thing had led to another, and she remembered pulling the band that had kept his long dark hair at the back. And as the band fell away, so did the hair. Falling forward – as he leaned over her, the tips of his hair brushing her skin. She remembered his delight that she was _that_ ticklish, and he tortured her, deliciously, dragging the ends over her skin until she had to take action to make him stop. Shaw smiled, lost in her dream of that first night together.

 **Abuja, Nigeria, January, 2015**

Greer and Kara Stanton climbed from the back seat of the car, their driver pointing the way down a narrow street. Ramshackle buildings with tin roofs lined the street, and overhead they could see wires running in impossible tangles to the buildings. On the ground and in the street, paper, trash, lay baking in the sun. It was hot already, and on its way up to nearly a hundred degrees again today. Sweat beaded on their driver's face.

Kara was uneasy. This street would be a trap for anyone on foot. High sides with too many sites to observe them, unseen. And no place to take cover if something started. She glanced at Greer, who was reading her expression.

"Which building is it?" she said to the driver, her words rapid, like a burst of gunfire. Their driver stood up a little taller, staring down the street, and raised his arm, wagging the back of his hand toward the end of the street.

"There," he said, "you go there."

"No. Not there," Kara said, and she stepped in front of Greer, blocking his body with hers like a bodyguard. Her hand went under her jacket, resting her palm on the handle of her weapon. Then:

"Sir, hello – this way," a man's soft voice called from their right side. Kara swung right, ready with her weapon, but a thin, smiling older man was walking toward them, followed by a small group of young Nigerian men. Kara glanced at Greer, who stepped forward pressing with his hand on her arm, signaling that she wouldn't be needing her gun. He patted her arm, as he looked up with a smile at the approaching men.

"Miss Hansen, these are the friends I've been telling you about." Greer moved past Kara and walked forward toward the smiling man, reaching out to shake hands.

"A long time since you wah here," the older man said, shaking hands and smiling broadly.

"Too long," Greer crooned, his face smiling, but those blue eyes icy. The older man still had a strong grip, and a certain youthfulness in his eyes, Greer noticed. The years had been kind to him.

"Come," the older man said, turning, walking behind the small group of young men toward one of the shops. Greer and Kara followed along. A pole near the front of the entrance held a tangle of thin, black wires overhead, and they could see an old faded sign on the wall, something about a technical academy. The young men stopped at the door, one opening it for the older man and his guests to pass in first, and then the rest of the group slowly filing in after them.

It was cooler inside, the light glaring from harsh blue-white panels above them, and blades of a ceiling fan swinging over their heads. They didn't stop there, but moved on to another door into a large room, cooler still, dimmer, with desks neatly arranged around the perimeter, facing the walls. On each desk, a computer monitor, with the same photo on each screen: an enormous rock face, jutting straight up from the ground, and near the middle another smaller face, a human face, made from the shadows in the rock. The older man noticed their eyes on the screens.

"Ah, yes, have you seen it? This is a famous rock, right here, outside of the city." Greer shook his head.

"No, we've had no time for sightseeing." The older man's eyes narrowed, and he bowed forward a bit, turning to another door at the far end of the large room. He led the way, and Greer and Kara followed, but the young men took seats at the desks in the larger room, resuming their work at the computers.

In this last room, their host pointed to two chairs near an old wooden desk. He reached over and held his hand out to Kara.

"I am Olawale, Miss," he said, bowing forward slightly toward her.

"Ulla Hansen," Kara said, leaning forward, too. The three sat down together and there was silence for a few moments as Olawale waited for them to start.

"We have come to do some business here, my friend." Greer looked up, smiling with his face, his eyes clear and cold, like Arctic ice.


	20. Chapter 20

****Chapter 20: Like her (rated T for adult themes); another who could; fire-breathing (rated T for adult themes)****

* * *

 **Please note** **: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...**

 **Manhattan, New York, January, 2015**

Root was sitting there on a chair across from the bed, watching her. The light had not even come up yet and she was already sitting there, arms hugging her legs drawn up on the chair, with a shawl pulled around her in the chill – watching her sleep.

In the feeble light, she leaned back against the cushion and let her thoughts go to Sameen. Tumbling out, released now, like the dam had broken, Root could only feel the distance, the loss. So hard to be so far from her when someone else had moved in so near. Night after empty night, another try, another try to find food for that hunger inside – but nothing. She looked at her sleeping there, and closed her eyes.

Starving. She was starving for what she'd had with Sameen. And in the emptiness, in the loss, she could only do what she had to do – night after empty night, another try.

This wasn't going to work.

Root tried to think of a better reason, so that when she spoke up later, as they left the hotel, it would be final. She didn't want things to drag on – too much like certain other things in her life right now. Better to be quick and clean, cut the ties. It had been fun in the beginning, she'd say. They'd both had some laughs. But it was time to move on now.

Root got up from the chair, with her shawl wrapped around her, to a low cabinet by the door. The top drawer tipped open to a pull-out shelf. It had a two-person coffee pot inside, and some little baskets stocked with half-and-half, coffee pods wrapped in foil and a few packets of tea. She was shivering a bit, and a cup of tea would warm her.

She flipped through the teas and picked the strongest one. Paper coffee cups wrapped in noisy plastic nested together in a stack, and Root used one in the bathroom for some water. Once she'd poured a cupful into the top and pushed the button, boiling water spurted out into her cup, and soon the aroma of tea filled the room. Root looked back toward the bed to see if the noise or the smell of her tea had wakened her. But no, she was still asleep over there, making this little snoring sound with each breath.

Root was starting to take notice of little things like that – things that she hadn't noticed at first. She really didn't like mousy people – people with mousy brown hair, soft squeaky voices, who always backed down, and always apologized. People who scurried around like they were expecting something to pounce all the time. She looked to the bed.

Like her.

 **Abuja, Nigeria, January, 2015**

"I am happy to hear it," Olawale said, his eyes crinkling into smiles at the thought of doing business with Greer.

"We did well togethah in the past," he said, and Greer agreed. But he'd need to poke Olawale a bit to see what was possible.

"This is something a little different, my friend." Greer watched his reaction. He spoke slowly and softly, as though divulging a secret. This negotiation would need to be a bit delicate.

"We're looking for someone with unique skills," Greer said. Something in his voice – the resonance, the cadence of his speech, the British accent; it was almost mesmerizing. His trademark.

"Tell me," Olawale said, softly, with his hands in front of him, pressing his fingers together like a tent. Greer leaned back, as though considering how to begin.

"We want to access a certain computer system."

"Access?"

"It won't be easy," Greer said, but then pushed on, " – security is at the highest levels."

Greer paused and watched Olawale lean his head to one side, his eyes rolling up to the ceiling as he considered Greer's words.

"Business? Or government?"

Greer smiled with his face, his eyes empty, like the eyes of a shark seeking prey.

"Let's say a business in bed with the government."

"And once the system is accessed? What then?"

"Maintain the access."

"For how long?"

"A few hours should be good enough. The details I leave to the experts."

Greer saw Kara from the corner of his eye, sitting back, but intent, watching Olawale. She gave nothing away with her expression. Her face was blank, unemotional, like his. Olawale looked from one to the other, but neither offered any hint of what to think.

"With all of yah resources, wah come here?" he said softly, opening his hands wide apart.

" – certain technical reasons to move operations off-shore." Greer kept his voice low and unhurried, hypnotic.

Olawale leaned back in his chair, silent for a long minute. Then he slowly leaned forward toward the two.

"We are a small operation here. I don't think we can help you with this." His eyes were resolute. Greer exhaled audibly. This was not what he'd expected. But he rebounded quickly.

"I see. I must take your word for it, of course. You know the capabilities of your people." He stopped for a long moment in the silence and then, as if he'd just thought of it:

"But perhaps you know another who could?" Greer looked up, with his eyes searching Olawale's features, inscrutable now himself.

Something in the room had just changed. It felt suddenly cold, and airless, as though everything human had been sucked from the space. Olawale shook his head.

"No. I do not," Olawale said. Greer stared into his face. Had he seen this coming?

"I'm speaking of – "

"Legend! Fantasy! He does not exist!" Olawale raised his voice, and it shook at the end, his fist high in front of him.

Interesting, thought Greer. Something had upset him. And Greer could see Kara from the corner of his eye, reacting, reaching toward her jacket. He turned to her and met her eyes. She didn't believe him either.

There was a sound behind them at the door, and they turned. The young men from the next room had heard Olawale's voice, and crowded together at the door, peering in. Olawale raised his hand to stop them.

"It tis alright," he said more softly. "Our friends were just leaving." Olawale stood, then waited for Greer and Kara to stand.

 **Manhattan, New York, January, 2015**

The bar was dead tonight. Sunday. Not even the regulars were here tonight. Root looked around. Friday and Saturday the place was packed, so many people it was hard to move at times. And so many bodies on the dance floor, you couldn't help sliding up against someone in the dark. Bodies everywhere. No shortage of choices then.

She was tired. Partying for two nights into the early morning, then out with someone til dawn. Then waking up in someone's bed. A little drink would make things better.

She sat down at her usual seat at the bar, and her bartender nodded to her with a little half-smile.

"Usual?" and Root nodded back. Her usual would be just fine.

On the far side of the bar, she lifted a glass from the stack, flipped it over and reached for the vodka. She dropped ice in first and then poured a generous amount of her favorite vodka over. She smiled, looking up to Root's face, and grabbed a fresh lemon, rolling it on the counter under her palm. Then, she made a show of stripping a wide piece of peel from the lemon, and twisting it over her drink. The smell of the lemon peel made Root smile, anticipating the taste already. Her bartender dropped the peel into her drink and slid it across in front of her.

Root was grateful for the silence. She didn't want to talk about it tonight. She just wanted to sit by herself, and drink. It was fine that the bar was empty tonight. Her drink would keep her company. Root lifted her glass up high, bowed her head to her bartender, then took a sip.

It was after ten when she got up from her seat and wandered over to the stairs that led down to the restrooms. Her bartender watched her go. Root was feeling no pain now. The elixir in her glass had done its work. She leaned on the railing as she made her way down to the lower level. The last two nights, she remembered the crowd in both restrooms, spilling out into the hallway. People pressing up against one another pushing each other against the walls, hands and mouths everywhere, and the music so loud, thumping. Bodies entwined everywhere.

But not tonight.

Root made her way to the Ladies Room and went in. When she caught sight of herself in the mirror, she had to stop for a closer look. That can't be right, she thought. The woman in the mirror looked so old; so tired. Her face was swollen, and there were dark circles under her eyes, like she wasn't sleeping. And little fine lines, little wrinkles in the places where smooth skin had been. What was happening?

She leaned forward toward the mirror, stretching her skin with her fingers to smooth out the lines. While she was leaning, the door opened and in walked two women. They brushed past her and straight back into the nearest stall. Root heard the two struggling together inside, and then a ripping sound and buttons dropping everywhere on the floor. Root turned around. She could see the back of one of them, a tall Asian woman, with long straight black hair. Root could see through her lacy black top, and on her back she could see a long design tattooed on her skin. She couldn't see enough of it to tell what it was, but it started on the back of her arm, ran up her shoulder and down her back, disappearing at her hip under her skirt. Root kept staring at the spot on her skin, where the tattoo disappeared from view. She was wondering how far down it went.

The two women were moaning, oblivious to Root standing there, watching them. After a minute, she turned around and walked out. She wandered down the hall and back up the steps to her seat. Her bartender watched her walk back. She looked sad.

"Bad day, Sugar?" Root didn't answer. She just picked up her glass and drained the rest. Then she slammed it down on the bar.

"Lemme call you a cab, Sugar." Root waved her hand, no, and then reached into her bag for a twenty, throwing it onto the bar near her glass.

"I'm good," she said, turning around. From the corner of her eye she saw someone coming up the stairs from the lower level. Tall, very thin, with long black straight hair and a lacy top, hiding that design on her skin. Their eyes met. Root watched her cross to one of the tables in the darkest part of the bar, and lift her coat. She saw her slide it on, and reach underneath her hair, lifting it from under her coat, to fall like a black waterfall from her hands, down her back. Black hair, long black coat, and tall black boots. She turned to look back over her shoulder at Root. Yes. She was looking back.

Without another glance, she walked to the front door, black boots clacking on the wood floor. Then at the door, she called back to Root, without turning.

"You coming?"

In the quiet of that same hotel room, Root could just make out the design in the darkness. The top curled around to her upper arm, and that part was hidden by the sheets, but the rest swung around the back of her shoulder, onto her back, winding down and down to her hip and then down further still. When her top had come off, and the tall boots, the skirt – falling to the floor, Root had made her show it to her, before anything else. She needed to know. Needed to know what it was.

A dragon. Fire-breathing. Winding the length of her, and around all of her best body parts. Root pressed herself against her in the darkness, both of them spent now, and the fire-breathing dragon resting against her.


	21. Chapter 21

****Chapter 21: she still slept (rated T for adult themes)****

* * *

 **Please note** **: In the Works Cited portion of Chapter 1 there are suggested music pieces to accompany this and other Chapters to enhance your experience of reading. I hope you enjoy them...**

 ** **Manhattan, January, 2015****

Fan's eyes opened, and she waited. She could just hear the sounds of breathing behind her in the bed, and the warmth of breath on her shoulder – the one with the dragon breathing fire on it. She smiled and raised her head to look around her.

It was the middle of the night, three or so. The perfect time. She raised the sheet and blanket, sliding away from the woman next to her, without waking her, and strode with long steps into the bathroom. Enough light came in from the window for her to see herself in the mirror, and she ran the water in the sink, washing her face and hands in the warm water, patting her skin with the towel from the bar behind her. She dropped it to the floor when she finished. Then she ran her fingers through her hair and shook it, watching the long, black hair shimmer in the light.

Her clothes were there on the floor in the room, and she bent down to retrieve each piece, sliding on her skirt, and her lacy black top, then the long black boots, pulling one at a time over each leg. When she was ready, she slid the black coat over her arms, and lifted up her hair from underneath the collar, letting the thick glossy strands slide from her hands over the top and down her back.

A glance at herself in the mirror – she was a vision in black leather, long and slender. Then back over her shoulder to the woman she'd left in the bed. Fan smiled again, reaching for the hotel room door, pulling it open, softly, watching to see if she woke. But she still slept.

Fan stepped into the hallway, holding the door for the men standing there, nodding to them that they could go in, and stepping past to the woman leaning there against the wall, waiting. Madame Huang – who looked her up and down, with the slightest of smiles in her eyes. And, in Mandarin, said:

"Good work, my daughter."


	22. Chapter 22

****Chapter 22: hellcat (rated T); legend (rated T);**** ** _ **Asset intercepted**_**

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 **Manhattan, January, 2015**

As Fan nodded back to her mother, she began to turn, lifting her phone from her pocket. There was another step in their plan. Another thing that she needed to do before they left. She raised her phone in front of her, and pushed open the hotel room door. But, just at that second a shot rang out – and Fan's arm jumped from her startle. The picture wobbled.

In the darkness, there was the sound of a struggle, and a woman's voice crying out. Fan slapped the light switch, and a lamp lit next to the bed, where a man's body sprawled. In the corner, three more men struggled to hold a woman. She flailed and kicked at the three of them, while Fan recorded the action on her phone. Then one of the men pulled a rumpled sheet from the bed and wrapped it around her like a snarling, slashing animal, yanking the ends together over her arms and legs. She swung her body, then, trying to escape, and the men struggled to hold her.

Fan watched her lean and reach an arm holding her, biting down on the bare arm, drawing blood. They could hear the curse, in Mandarin, of its owner, pulling back and then swinging his fist in to strike her across the head, spraying his blood over the white sheet. She struggled, swinging her body, trying to throw them off her. She snarled like a wild animal.

Fan barked a command, and one of the men pulled a long wooden stick from his side, and slashed it across her with a thud. Root moaned. Then another strike and another, until there was no more moaning, and Root's body went limp in their arms – wild animal subdued.

Fan stopped recording then, and looked up at the men. She spoke in Mandarin, and the men put Root down on the floor and re-wrapped her in the sheet, more securely this time, then lifted her and carried her out to the hall. Madame Huang stood at the doorway, and she watched Fan gather Root's clothing, the gun she had fired, and the leather tote bag she'd used to carry it in with her. When Fan searched the tote, she smiled, and lifted a second weapon, Root's taser, from the bottom of the bag. She dangled it in front of her mother. This little hellcat was full of surprises, Madame Huang thought to herself. She told her daughter to check their man lying across the bed.

Fan reached over to his neck and felt for his pulse. She moved her fingers a bit each way, and then looked up to her mother, shaking her head, no.

"Leave him," she said in Mandarin. And without a look back, the two women walked from the room, down the hall and out into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. The men were loading Root into the back of an SUV. Madame Huang climbed in on the passenger side, and Fan climbed in with Root in the back. One of the men took the phone from Fan, and waited while the driver pulled the car up under the streetlight, next to a security camera watching the street. Its red eye blinked silently.

The man with Fan's phone climbed the bumper, and then scaled the front of the car and the windshield up to the roof. He stood up straight, facing the camera, with the phone in his hand. Pressing buttons on the glass, he reset the phone to play the movie. Then he turned it to face the eye of the street camera, and started the movie.

The camera eye recorded Fan's movie, red eye blinking as the images fed into the Machine's eye, too. It watched the movie until the end, then watched as the man lowered the phone, peered into the camera and smiled, then climbed down off the top of the SUV, speeding off then, with Root inside.

 **Abuja, Nigeria, January, 2015**

Kara stood first, then Greer, and she watched him for signs of how he wanted to proceed. He leaned forward, reaching his hand out toward Olawale.

"Too bad, my Friend. I thought we could help each other – " Greer started to say. Olawale moved around from the back of his desk, leaving Greer's hand in the air. Kara shot a look toward Greer – a snub like that was bound to lead to trouble. Greer's eyes narrowed, and he looked at his outstretched hand. That was enough for Kara. She pulled her weapon from under her jacket. Time to take control of this situation.

She swung around, with her gun on the group of men at the door, then back at Olawale. She pulled a chair up, and motioned for him to sit down there. And she motioned for the men at the door to back up, and sit on the floor where she could see them. She held her gun on them as they backed themselves away from the door, at Olawale's urging. He raised his arms in the air, lowering his hands over and over to tell the men to sit. Kara walked into the room with them, then past them to the far side, turning to face back toward Greer and Olawale, with the group of men between them.

"I had hoped it wouldn't come to this, my Friend," Greer said to him, as Olawale leaned back on the wooden chair. He said nothing to Greer.

Greer stepped to a lamp standing on the floor by the desk, and pulled the cord up from its base, snapping it away from the lamp. He took the cord to the back of Olawale's chair, tapping on his shoulder to make him extend his arms back behind the chair. Greer wrapped the cord around his wrists, then around the back of the chair, knotting it where Olawale couldn't reach.

"We need a name. Someone here knows what it is. Tell us, and you can all go free," Greer said, his voice low and quiet in the sudden silence of the room. He looked from one to the other of the young men. He could read their eyes, wide-open, staring at him, then at Olawale, then back again.

"No?" Greer moved to the side of Olawale's chair, standing there with a look on his face, as though they had disappointed him. They shifted themselves on the floor, eyes down.

"No one?" Greer said, staring around at them one more time.

"I've told you – this is legend. He does not exist – " Olawale started to say, but Greer struck out, slapping across the side of Olawale's head, knocking the glasses from his face, and skittering them across the floor. The young men looked away, shocked at the sound of the slap.

"Things can go quite badly tonight," Greer said. Olawale straightened himself in the chair, as though he were signaling to the young men to be strong like him. They looked up at his face, and in the dim light of the room, they could see the slight motion of his head, back and forth, no. He was telling them not to give in.

And in the young men's eyes, Greer could see the change, how fear and confusion had just switched to something else – hope. He stepped to the door of the room, and swung it nearly closed, so the young men couldn't see what he was about to do, but they could still hear it.

He rolled up his sleeves.

 **Rome, Italy, January, 2015**

From the top floor of the cantina, he could see down to the street, to the courtyard where she would often sit, reading a story out loud to the children gathered on the benches in front of her; or sitting at the side of one of the children, guiding the drawing, encouraging another color, singing sometimes when the children were restless.

He watched her for hours in his dreams, re-cycling these few scraps of memories from the window to keep her with him. He would often imagine that she would look up one day, look up from her reading, to see him there at the window. And he wasn't fast enough to move out of sight. She could see him watching her; but instead of rejection in her eyes, and disgust, she would pause instead. In slow motion, her eyes would roll up, as a memory gently returned, fluttering in like a welcome breeze, and bringing a smile as warm as Spring.

Harold would often wake at that moment, with tears in his eyes, and look for her there. Only to realize it was just a dream. Just a dream.

Something was different tonight. A light was flashing. He could see her face, looking up from the book, about to smile, but a light was flashing. What was it?

Harold opened his eyes, and in the darkened room, his monitor was flashing at him. Flashing a message. He lifted his head from the bed. He was surrounded by stacks of paper he hadn't bothered to move when he climbed into bed, exhausted. He felt for his glasses, and then slid them up on his nose, to see the message flashing on his screen.

Harold read it, and lifted himself quickly, the stacks of papers sliding away to the floor as he swung up to read it again.

 ** _ACTION REQUIRED..._**

 ** _Asset intercepted_**

Harold rolled to standing, more of the stacks sliding overboard to the floor. He adjusted his glasses, and limped stiffly to the chair in front of his monitor. He stared at the camera above the screen and a moment later, the screen changed to grainy footage of a street scene. A dark SUV rolled up under the camera, and Harold could see a man, climbing up the front of the SUV, then onto the windshield, and up onto the roof, balancing himself as he stood up to face the camera. Harold could see him holding a cellphone in his hand, and he pressed a few buttons, then turned it to face the camera.

Harold watched as a door lit up on the cellphone screen, and a hand reached to push it open. There was a bright flash for a second, and the phone jumped, losing the signal. And then a light came on, showing a room with a bed in the foreground, a man in jeans and a denim jacket sprawled out on the bed, and then the picture focused upward, to a group of people fighting.

He could see arms and legs, and men trying to hold a woman fighting to get free. Then he could see one of them reach for something white, trying to wrap the woman in a sheet from the bed to restrain her. She kept fighting and then caught one of them by the arm, biting down so hard that he was bleeding.

Harold watched, sickened, as they brutalized the woman with a long stick, hitting her until she stopped fighting. Her head fell forward then, toward the camera, and Harold could see who she was. Root. They had captured Root.

The cellphone pulled back, and a face appeared in the streetlight camera, smiling. A Chinese face. The Zheng? Then Harold watched as the man retraced his steps, back down the front of the car. And a moment later, it drove off into the night.

Harold looked at his watch. He had gone to sleep just after 6:00 in the morning. It was 9:45 now on his watch. There was a knock at his door, and the door swung open. Reese and Shaw were standing there, cellphones in their hands, looking up at him.

"What's going on, Finch?" Shaw asked.

"Miss Groves. We need to go back."


	23. Chapter 23

****Chapter 23: bait (rated T); "take a look at this" (rated T)****

* * *

 **Rome, Italy, January, 2015**

Harold motioned for Reese and Shaw to come in, then he sat down at his laptop, tapping keys to restart the video. Reese sat down behind him, and Shaw leaned in close over his shoulder to watch. There on the screen was the grainy picture of an SUV pulling up, and a chubby man clambering up the bumper to the roof. They watched him turn a cellphone to the camera and the movie of Root's abduction played for them all over again.

They watched the flash of gunfire inside the room as its door opened. A woman's hand reached inside and the light blinked on in the darkness. It looked like the inside of a hotel room. They could see a body in the foreground, apparently hit by the gunfire, lying motionless across a bed. Then the video shifted upward to four people struggling in a corner, three men trying to subdue a thrashing woman with a gun.

They could see one of the men grab her arm and yank it up toward the ceiling, then wrench her hand backwards in a joint lock. The gun slid from her open hand. They could see the woman kicking, twisting her body, so the men could barely hold on. They tried to wrap her with a sheet then, to cinch her arms and legs, but she managed to reach one of them, biting down on his bare arm. He pulled away, bleeding, and then the violence really ratcheted. He swung his fist in against the side of her head, snapping it backwards. But she struggled harder, swinging her body, twisting and turning violently, kicking out with both legs inside the sheet.

They could hear a woman's muffled voice saying something on the video; and then they could see a wood baton come out, and one of the men striking the struggling woman – until her body sagged in the sheet. The last thing they saw on the video was the woman's head falling forward toward the camera. The assailants wanted her face to be clearly seen. There could be no mistake who it was in the video.

"Root," Shaw said, standing up. She watched as the cellphone lowered and the man holding it turned his face to the lens – smiling at them, taunting them. Shaw didn't see him climb down from the roof and jump in before the SUV drove off.

That face – that smiling, taunting face – banged into her memory like a hammer-hit. It was him. The one from the basement of the hair salon in Queens. The one who'd used a wood baton, just like the one from the video, on Reese and her. Her body tensed, and her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder. Reese.

Shaw stopped herself from going back to that night in her memory – too raw, too much to distract her right now. Reese was right. She needed to keep her mind clear and sharp. The time for payback would come. She was certain of it. And when it did, there would be no holding her back.

Harold tapped on the keyboard and a map of Manhattan flashed up in front of them, with a red line flashing in its center. A red dot showed progress toward the Midtown Tunnel.

"The Machine is tracking the SUV right now," Harold said.

"They may be heading back out to Queens," Shaw said. "We're half a day away – we'll never get there in time." She started pacing back and forth in Harold's room.

Reese stood up and in his whisper-voice said, "They're using her as bait. To get to us. They aren't done with her yet, Shaw." He looked Shaw squarely in the eyes.

"I know. They've gotta know by now Greer's team in Rome is gone and we were the ones who took them out. They don't need Samaritan up and running to know what happened to their team." Shaw looked around at the other two.

"Miss Shaw, Mr. Reese, I have my private jet here. We can fly out any time you are ready. I'll make arrangements and, in the meantime, the Machine will track Miss Grove's location. When we get back, we'll be ready."

 **Abuja, Nigeria, January, 2015**

Kara watched the young men's faces, to see if one might try to be a hero. The sounds from the other room, the slaps and thuds of punches landing like body-blows on the old man, made the younger ones wince, hunch their shoulders and look to the floor. But one man was different, Kara noticed. He held his head higher, watching the door, running the calculus in his head for an attack. She sensed his body tensing, rehearsing himself rushing the door – bursting through and tackling Greer. That wasn't going to happen, Kara whispered to herself.

"Don't!"

Startled, the men flinched and looked up from the floor, "Don't even think about it," she said out loud, staring at the back of that one young man. He hadn't turned her way, but continued to look toward the door.

"You! Look at me!" she commanded, but he barely acknowledged.

Then the sounds from the other room stopped. They could hear footsteps coming quickly toward the door. It started to swing back into the room where Greer had Olawale. Kara raised her weapon.

"I'll shoot if you – " but too late. The young man bolted up from the floor, bull-rushing the door where Greer was standing on the other side.

He never made it.

The sounds of her gun going off made the young men flinch and cower, with their hands over their ears. They felt the floor heave underneath them as his body hit the floor, skidding just short of the door, red stains spreading fast on the back of his white shirt. The men swung their eyes to him, then back to Kara, who stood with her gun trained on the rest of them.

"Anyone else?" she said, looking each man in the eyes.

Greer swung the door open, and the men turned back to get a glimpse of Olawale, but he was hidden by Greer and the door. Greer looked down at the body first, then at the men on the floor, and then up to Kara. They could see the icy blue of his eyes. No mercy, no hint of regret. He tipped his head toward the room, and Kara started to move toward him.

"Take a look at this," he said to her.

She scanned the young man on the floor, kneeling next to him, with the muzzle of her gun resting on the back of his neck while she checked for his pulse. Weak and thready, he was still alive. Kara looked up to Greer and nodded, yes.

"Never mind him," Greer said, impatient.

Kara frowned and stepped over the young man's body to the half-opened door, peering in. Olawale sat in the chair, facing the door, with his head leaning back. Kara could see something not right with his head. As she got closer, she could see that the gray hair at the sides of his head was lifting up from his skin, and short black hair was showing underneath. She pulled the hair, and it peeled away, lifting from his head. She pulled at a gray eyebrow, and after several strong tugs, the one closest to her pulled away, too, revealing dark black hair underneath.

Kara turned to Greer. This was a much younger man, disguised as the older man Greer knew, Olawale.

"Who is he?" Kara asked. Greer shook his head. He didn't know.

The door flung open behind them, footsteps rushing in. Kara lifted her gun, but too late to get the shot off before the men reached them. The wounded man in the bloody shirt leaped forward with his body like a lineman; tackling, knocking them off their feet, the three of them slamming to the floor together. Kara's gun flew in the air, clattering to the floor and sliding away. One of the students ran after it, picked it up, and aimed at the three on the floor. The rest of the men surrounded Olawale, untying his hands, and sitting him up in his chair. They stared at the peeling wig, and the gray eyebrow drooping down. They looked at one another, not sure what this meant, nor what they should do.

"Let's get out of here," one of the men said.

"We'll take him with us," another said.

"What do we do with them?" the first man asked, motioning to Kara and Greer.

"Kill them."

They looked around from one to another, but no one stepped up to take the gun.

"They shot Akeen down – like a dog in the street." There were murmurs of agreement, and the student with the gun in his hand passed it to the one who had just spoken. He lifted it in his hand.

"I'll do it. Just take Olawale. Get him to the car, and I'll do this." The rest of the students lifted the man in the chair, and carried him from the room. There was a door that lead to the back where his car was parked. They fumbled in his pockets, and found the keys, then slid him in on the seat behind the driver, while another one started his car.

Minutes went by, and the men were getting more and more edgy. "What's taking him so long?" one said. And then, finally, a loud blast, and then another. The men looked around at each other, eyes wide, sweating into their clothes. The last student, the one with the gun, appeared at the back door and hustled to the car. They could smell gunpowder on him as he sat down in his seat, and blood covered his sleeve. The driver lurched forward with the car.

No one said anything for a long time. Then one of them asked about the wounded student.

"Akeen died in my arms," the gunman said. Silence fell on the group, as they drove the road leading away from Abuja, only half-aware of where they were heading. They drove until the sun was high overhead, and then they pulled off on the side of the road, into heavy woods that lined the highway.

Olawale began to stir, hearing the crunch of hardpack under the tires, and rocking back and forth over deep ruts in the dirt. They pulled far up off the highway, so the car wouldn't be seen from the road, and then they got out, leaving the doors wide open. The cooler air under the canopy of trees chased the stifling air from the car. The men stood in a knot outside, looking at the man they had known as Olawale.

He opened his eyes and looked around, then tried to sit up. He felt the hair on his head shift, and reached up with his hand to the gray hair. He could see the men watching him, waiting for an explanation.

"What has happened?" he asked them, in the soft voice of Olawale still.

"We rushed them, and took the gun away. Then we put you in the car and drove away. The man and the woman are dead – they shot Akeen when he tried to free you."

"Is he?" and Olawale stopped, afraid to finish his thought.

"Dead. They killed him."

The man who was Olawale looked up at the young men. They didn't know what to do, what to think.

"Here is what we must do now," he said softly.

"More will come looking for me. You must split up and go yah separate ways. Disappear for a long time. Go away, away from everyone who knows you. Leave everything behind. Otherwise, they will find you, and you'll all end up like Akeen." He could see the look in their eyes. Afraid. Uncertain.

"These people will not stop. You must leave and not come back. Don't try to contact one anothah. It's best if no one knows where you go, and you don't know where the others go. For yah own safety, and everyone else's." He could see their thoughts in their eyes. If one of them were found, could he be forced to tell where the others had gone? The reality of their situation was dawning.

"Take the car. I have some money in a box undah the back seat. Divide it among you, and then drop one off at a time, in different places, fah apart." His voice was soft, almost reassuring. He seemed to know what they should do, but it was hard for them to imagine leaving. Everything had happened so fast. Now their lives were in danger, and they would have to leave to survive.

Olawale lifted his legs and swung them out of the car. He grabbed the frame around the window and pulled himself up, holding his other arm against his body. He grimaced as he stood, and he looked shaky to the students as he moved from the back of the car. He pointed inside it.

"Get the box undah the seat."

Olawale watched as two of the young men leaned in and fiddled with the seat, lifting it and reaching under. They found the box, and brought it out to the grass where they all came together to look inside it. Stacks of bills, bound together in small bundles, filled the box. He could see their eyes widen. They had never seen this much cash in their lives. One of them lifted the stacks, handing them around to the men, and then the last of the money they left in the box for Olawale.

He moved away from them, and pointed back to the car.

"Go, now. I don't want to see any of yah faces again. Do you hear me?" He watched as the men replaced the seat in the back. They climbed in. Their eyes were on him, as the car slowly backed out on the uneven ground. Further and further, until he couldn't see them any longer.

Olawale bent over, grimacing, and picked up the last stacks of bills inside the box, stuffing them in the pockets of his pants. He looked up at the sky, with the hot sun high overhead, hidden for now by the trees. At least it was cooler here. He would hike out near the road, but stay out of sight. Not far from here was a place where he could hide, a place he had often used to ply his trade. He reached up to the gray hair on his head, and pulled off the wig; then the rest of his disguise – graying eyebrows, wrinkled skin under his eyes. He threw the pieces into the woods as he hiked back toward the road. The others would be gone by now. They wouldn't see where he was headed.

He had a plan in mind. A certain card that he would play if he ever suspected that Samaritan was coming for him. He knew that one day they would find him. He'd stayed one step ahead, hiding his tracks in the back streets and the hills of Abuja. It was only a matter of time, though, before Samaritan would find him. And then, only one man could save him. Harold Finch.


	24. Chapter 24

****Chapter 24: in the middle of it all; "I have something to tell you";****

* * *

 ** **Rome, Italy, January, 2015****

Reese stashed the last of his gear into his duffel bag and zipped it closed. Shaw did the same, then swung her bag over her shoulder and headed for the living room. Reese stayed back, pulling his phone from his pocket, clicking through the L's until he got to _Lionel_.

Back home in New York, it was just before dawn, but he'd have to call and wake Fusco with the news about Root – and Fusco wasn't going to be happy about chasing the Zheng back to Queens. The last time he'd been there, Fusco had scraped Shaw and Reese off the floor – down in the basement of the hideout in Flushing.

And the two of them weren't a pretty sight when he found them: run off the road, kidnapped and beaten by the Zheng, then left behind in the basement for the rest of the team to find. The payback they'd arranged, with some help from Elias, took half of the Zheng off the streets. But this new attack on the team meant there was more work to be done, and soon. The Zheng answered to Greer, and it was time to stop them for good.

It would be half-a-day's trip before Reese, Shaw and Finch could get back. Fusco was the only one there who could handle this. He was still on leave from the NYPD – after the shoot-out with Greer's team in Manhattan. He'd stayed back in New York, while Reese and Shaw went after Harold in Rome. And Root had stayed, too. None of them knew what had happened. It seemed from the video she'd been lured somewhere by the Zheng before she was captured. Harold and the Machine were still tracking their SUV.

After three rings, Reese could hear a sleepy voice on the other end. "Yeah?"

"Lionel."

"Here."

"You need to wake up." He could hear Fusco on the other end, groaning and moving around. There were rustling noises, and the sound of a hand thumping against something heavy. Then the sound of a lamp switch clicking.

"What time is it?"

"O-four hundred, your time," Reese answered. He heard Fusco groan again, sitting up, trying to get his brain to work.

"What's happening?"

"Finch got a message just now from the Zheng. A video. It looks like they went after Root. They got her alone somewhere in Manhattan. It looks like she shot one of them before they grabbed her. Harold is tracking their SUV. It's heading for the Mid-town Tunnel. They may be taking her back to Queens."

It was silent on the other end. Reese didn't know if Fusco was thinking or if he'd gone back to sleep in the middle of the conversation.

"Lionel?"

"I'm here – so what's the plan? Where are you guys?"

"Packed and ready to leave from Rome. Finch has his private jet here, so we don't have to wait for a flight. It's gonna take some time to get there – we think the Zheng are using Root as bait. They beat her up pretty bad on the video."

"Just like you and Shaw," Fusco said. Reese heard more rustling sounds and then, "I'm getting ready. Finch can tell me where they are. I'll follow and see what I can see." Reese agreed, then Fusco spoke up again.

"If they take her back to that building in Queens, she could be anywhere in that whole block of stores. They're all connected underground by the tunnel we found."

"Wait for backup, Lionel. I don't want you going in there by yourself. Let me talk to Finch and I'll get back to you in a little while."

Reese listened for Fusco to acknowledge and then clicked off. He shouldered his duffel bag and caught up with the rest of the team in the living room. Shaw was packed and ready, drinking coffee and eating some breakfast. Harold's bags were there, but he was sitting in front of his laptop, writing notes on a small pad of paper.

Brody walked over to talk with Reese. "Four-eyes told us you're heading back to New York. Some kinda problem back there," he said.

"One of our people got ambushed – the same gang from Queens."

"That Chinese gang?" Brody asked. Reese nodded, looking around at Shaw and Finch.

"So, what are you gonna do?"

"I have a cop back there who can follow the car and keep an eye on things until we have more people in place."

"You can do all that from here?"

Reese nodded to Brody.

"Four-eyes. He's got eyes in the sky," Reese said in his whisper-voice. Brody crinkled his forehead, like he didn't really know what Reese meant. And Reese wanted to keep it that way, so he turned away to talk with the others.

Brody had a couple of his men take the luggage out to the van. The rest of his men were just finishing a meal, getting ready to get some sleep after their night shift near Grace's school. Since the raid on Greer's headquarters in Rome, Reese's men hadn't seen any activity around the school. But no one was letting down his guard. They were certain this was just a break in the action until Greer brought in another team. Grace and her school were soft targets, and Greer couldn't resist going after them. The only way to keep Grace safe here in Rome was to surround her with Reese's hand-picked men. These men were loyal, and they were good at what they did – ex-soldiers from their days fighting together in Afghanistan. Reese could trust them to do what needed to be done to protect Grace.

And so far, she had no idea that a small army of ex-soldiers were protecting her from Greer's mercenaries. Or that Harold was the one orchestrating the whole thing. Her memories of the lives they'd shared were all wiped clean; Greer had turned Harold into a monster in her mind. The sight of Harold would bring her only fear and distrust. So deep was the damage Greer had done.

And everything Harold had done to keep Grace safe – arranging the offer to teach art in Italy, finding the apartment near the Vatican – where she could live a quiet life, roam the city, enjoy the architecture, the museums, the art and music she loved. All of that was gone now. Grace had given it up. For the children; the refugee children she'd begun to teach and care for.

This wasn't meant to happen. He'd just wanted to give her another life, far away from New York and the danger of knowing him. But instead, she'd been drawn into the children's stories, the horror of the violence they'd seen, how they'd managed to survive, travel the Mediterranean in crowded dinghies and leaky boats, to end up there. Trapped. With no place to go, stacking up like cord wood in the yard. They were there by the tens of thousands all over Italy, blocked from moving past her borders. So, Grace had used the only weapons she knew to fight back. With paint boxes and paper, story books, and music, she'd fashioned a safe haven for some of their children, a school where she could teach art while she tended to their deeper wounds.

Grace had moved her school from the quiet old streets near the Vatican, here, next to the refugee towers – old decaying buildings on what had once been a college campus. The towers were home now to thousands of fleeing migrants from Africa, the Middle East, and beyond, squeezed in together in the towers, with many more coming all the time. There were precious few services, and the locals had turned away, afraid of crime and violence spilling out on their streets.

And there, in the middle of it all, was Grace.

 **Abuja, Nigeria, January, 2015**

There were just two of them left in Olawale's car – the driver and the young man who'd stayed behind in the school. Adebisi stared at the bloody sleeve of his white shirt. That's where his classmate, Akeen, rested his head in his final moments. Adebisi shuddered. How could all of this have gone so wrong?

The two foreigners had come to Nigeria to make a deal with Olawale. But something had happened and Olawale said no. They'd attacked him, then, beating him in front of the students to make them talk. The foreigners wanted a name. A name for the most famous hacker in the country, maybe in all the world. Olawale tried to tell them there was no such person. It was a myth. But they didn't believe him. They kept beating Olawale, trying to get them to talk. He was an old man – at least they'd thought he was. They knew he couldn't take much more, but, they were scared. The woman had a gun, and they didn't know what they should do.

Akeen started it. He'd rushed forward to save Olawale and the foreign woman shot him. He fell right there in front of them. And then everything happened so fast. The two foreigners were in the room with Olawale. The rest of them went to help Akeen – but he got up from the floor, as if he was possessed, and with his last burst of effort, he attacked the foreigners. The gun went flying and one of the students picked it up. Akeen had tackled them and they were down on the floor. And then Adebisi heard himself promise he'd get rid of the foreigners with their own gun.

First, he told the others to get Olawale to his car. When they went to untie him, they could see the gray wig and the rest of his disguise. Olawale wasn't the old man they thought he was. They carried him to his car in the back, and left Adebisi to deal with the foreigners.

He had their gun, and he had them get up and move away from Akeen. He could see that his friend was dying there. He remembered looking around him and seeing the tiny closet where the electrics were stored, the servers and equipment that ran their computers. He made them go inside the closet, and he locked them in. He was afraid to tie them up – these were dangerous people who would kill all of them without a second thought. He just wanted to stay with Akeen until it was over.

He shuddered, thinking about it. There on the floor of the car was the gun. He couldn't look at it now. Instead, he looked at his classmate, Eke, who was driving the car. One by one, they'd dropped each of the other students in separate places, far from each other, just as Olawale had told them. He and Eke had kept their eyes looking forward, so neither knew who was left in the back and who got out at each stop. That way, if they were caught later on, neither could say where the rest had gone.

Adebisi shook his head. He should have done it when he had the chance. He could have shot the two foreigners. They deserved it for killing Akeen. But when he'd gone to the door of the closet and raised the gun to do it, to shoot through the door of the closet, he knew he couldn't miss. There was no place to hide in there. His heart started to pound, and he felt a buzzing in his head. He felt like his knees would buckle. He'd raised the gun. And aimed. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't pull the trigger.

He started shaking, and the gun went off in his hand. A wild shot. He realized the rest of them in the car outside would hear it. So, he fired another shot, in the air above his head – and then he just ran.

The ones who'd come to make the deal with Olawale, the ones who beat him, threatened all of them, and killed Akeen – they were still alive. Adebisi turned his head and told Eke to stop the car.

"I have something to tell you."


End file.
